title: Lykoi

text: In The International Cat Association (TICA) registry, the Lykoi went before the board in 2012 and was passed to "Registration Only" status by unanimous consent. The breed is now recognized as a Championship Breed and were able to begin competing against other Championship breeds from May 2017, with TICA. Work is currently being done to expand the breeding program.


title: Lykoi

text: In The Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA), Lykoi of all colours are accepted and competing in Provisional as of 2022. They are expected to be accepted as a Championship Breed in 2023-2024.


title: Lykoi

text: The Lykoi is a naturally occurring gene in the feral cat population. The Lykoi breed was founded in 2011 by Johnny Gobble, Brittney Gobble, and Patti Thomas when two unrelated litters of kittens were presented to the founders as unique cats. The Gobbles did careful health evaluations to ensure that the cat's unusual appearance was not caused by sickness or disease. To prove that it was a gene, Johnny Gobble bred two of the unrelated cats to produce the first intentionally bred Lykoi. Since the mother to one litter was a black domestic, extensive outcrossing with short-haired black domestic cats began. With time, it was determined that the gene was recessive, and to continue to reduce genetic inbreeding, more outcrossing with the black domestic cats was done. There are still Lykoi cats born to the feral cat population, and sometimes they can be used in the breeding program. Once Championship status is reached, there should be enough outcrossing to ensure that inbreeding is minimal.


title: Lykoi

text: At the University of Tennessee, dermatologists examined them for any skin abnormalities. Along with biopsy samples of the skin, the dermatologists could find no reason for the coat pattern. What they did find is that some hair follicles lacked all the necessary components required to create hair (which is why Lykoi lack an undercoat). They also found that the follicles that were able to produce hair lacked the proper balance of these components to maintain the hair (which is why Lykoi do molt and can become almost completely bald from time to time). It was determined, with test breeding, to be true natural mutation.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: The Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) (; FSSPX) is an international fraternity of traditionalist Catholic priests founded in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a leading traditionalist voice at the Second Vatican Council with the , and Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers until 1968. The society was initially established as a pious union of the Catholic Church with the permission of François Charrière, the Bishop of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg in Switzerland. In 2022, the society reached over 700 priestly members.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: The society is named after Pope Pius X, whose anti-Modernist stance the society stresses, retaining the Tridentine Mass and pre-Vatican II liturgical books in Latin for the other sacraments. The present Superior General of the society is the Reverend Davide Pagliarani, who succeeded Bishop Bernard Fellay in 2018. There are a number of organisations derived from the SSPX: most notably the Society of Saint Pius V (SSPV), a group mostly in the United States; and the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP), which was made a society of apostolic life under Pope John Paul II in 1988.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: Tensions between the society and the Holy See reached their height in 1988 with the Écône consecrations: Archbishop Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without the Apostolic Mandate and against a personal warning by Pope John Paul II, resulting in Rome declaring that the bishops who consecrated or were consecrated had incurred (automatic) excommunication. Though the SSPX denied that the bishops incurred any penalty, claiming canon law in their defense, the declared excommunication of the surviving bishops was at their request removed in 2009 in the hope of speedily reaching "full reconciliation and complete communion".


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: The society's canonical situation remains unresolved. The 2010s saw growing recognition by the Holy See of its sacramental and pastoral activities, with Papal recognition extended indefinitely in 2017 to confessions heard by its priests, and local ordinaries allowed to grant delegation to its priests for officially witnessing marriages. In addition, the Holy See named SSPX bishop Fellay as judge in a canonical trial against one of the society's priests. The significance of these recognitions is that, unlike other Catholic sacraments, both confession and marriage require canonical jurisdiction for their validity. While its critics claim the society's priests were not explicitly granted the requisite jurisdiction, it contends that they possessed "supplied jurisdiction" for confessions due to a "state of necessity".


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: Like Traditionalist Catholicism in general, the SSPX was born out of opposition to changes in the Catholic Church that followed the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). The founder and central figure of the society was the French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who had served the Catholic Church as Apostolic Delegate for French-speaking Africa, Archbishop of Dakar, and Superior General of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, a missionary order of priests.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: In September 1970, shortly after his retirement as Superior General of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, Lefebvre was approached by eleven members of the Pontifical French Seminary in Rome. They sought Lefebvre's advice on a conservative seminary where they could complete their studies. He directed them to the University of Fribourg, in Switzerland.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: In late 1970, at age 65, urged by the abbot of Hauterive Abbey and the Dominican theologian Father Marie-Dominique Philippe to teach the seminarians personally, Lefebvre, feeling too old to undertake such a large project, told them he would visit François Charrière, Bishop of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg, with a request to set up a religious society. He told them, if he said to go through with it, he would see in it a sign of Divine Providence. Charrière granted Lefebvre's request and, with a document predated by six days to 1 November 1970, he established the Society of St. Pius X as a (Latin, for "pious, or holy, union") on a provisional () basis for six years. status was the first stage through which a Catholic organisation passed prior to gaining official recognition as a religious institute or society of apostolic life. (Since 1983, the term "association of the faithful" has replaced .) The Society of Saint Pius X was formally founded, adhering to all canonical norms, and receiving the episcopal blessing and encouragement of the local ordinary. Some Swiss laymen offered the International Seminary of Saint Pius X at Écône to the newly formed group, and in 1971 the first 24 candidates entered, followed by a further 32 in October 1972. Aside from Father Marie-Dominique Philippe, a fellow Dominican, Father Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers, one of the brightest theologians of that time, also taught in the Seminary. Guérard des Lauriers subsequently left the position of professor because Lefebvre was "acting like Pontius Pilate" by celebrating the 1965 Interim Mass.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: Normally, after a suitable period of experience and consultation with the Holy See, a bishop would raise a to official status at diocesan level. Lefebvre attempted to bypass this stage, and contacted three different departments of the Holy See in order to secure early recognition for his society. He succeeded in obtaining a letter of encouragement from Cardinal John Wright, prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, but there was no approval from the Holy See congregation responsible for raising an association to the level desired by Lefebvre. Cardinal Wright's letter, dated 18 February 1971, said with regard to the field of competence of Cardinal Wright's own Congregation, that the association "will be able to contribute much to accomplishing the plan drawn up by this Congregation for worldwide sharing of clergy." Cardinal Wright was still recommending prospective seminarians to apply to Écône as late as 1973.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: The establishment of the SSPX was unwelcome to a number of churchmen, most notably to the French bishops, whose theological outlook was quite different from that of Lefebvre and who had important connections with the Holy See Cardinal Secretary of State, Jean-Marie Villot. According to one defender of Lefebvre, at the meeting of the French episcopal conference at Lourdes in 1972 the seminary at Écône acquired the nickname —the "wildcat seminary". By November 1974 the French episcopate had indicated that they would not incardinate any of Lefebvre's priests in their dioceses which is the opposite of the desire to incardinate the priests of the society by some Swiss bishops. They also publicly criticised Catholics who remained attached to the Tridentine Mass. By this time, the SSPX had opened additional seminaries in Armada, Michigan, (1973) and in Rome (1974).


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: The first sign of curial intervention was a Vatican meeting on 26 March 1974. By June 1974, a commission of cardinals had been formed to inquire into the SSPX, and decided on a canonical visitation of the seminary by two Belgian priests, held 11–13 November 1974. Franz Schmidberger, later superior general of the society, said that their report was favourable. However, the seminarians and staff at Écône were shocked by some liberal theological opinions expressed by the two priests. In what he later described as a mood of "doubtlessly excessive indignation", Lefebvre wrote a declaration denouncing what he considered liberal trends "clearly evident" in the council and in the subsequent reforms. This document was leaked and published in January 1975, in the French Traditionalist Catholic journal .


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: Lefebvre was in serious difficulties. In January 1975, Bishop Pierre Mamie of Fribourg wrote to Rome stating his intention to withdraw the status that his predecessor had granted. In the same month, Lefebvre was summoned to the Vatican, meeting with the cardinals on 13 February and 3 March. Lefebvre was surprised by their hostile tone: at one point a French cardinal, Gabriel-Marie Garrone, reportedly called him a "fool".


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: On 6 May 1975, with the approval of the cardinals, Bishop Mamie withdrew the SSPX's status. Lefebvre instructed his lawyer to lodge appeals, and he ultimately petitioned the Holy See's supreme court, the Apostolic Signatura, which turned down the appeal. From this point onward, the SSPX was no longer recognised as a canonical organization.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: Lefebvre and the leadership of the society have always maintained that he was treated unfairly by the Roman Curia, that the suppression of the SSPX was unjust, and that the procedures violated the 1917 Code of Canon Law.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: The SSPX continued to operate in spite of its discountenance. In the consistory of 24 May 1976, Pope Paul VI rebuked Archbishop Lefebvre by name—reportedly the first time in 200 years that a pope had publicly reprimanded a Catholic bishop—and appealed to him and his followers to change their minds.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: Lefebvre announced that he intended to confer ordination on some of his students at the end of June 1976. On 12 June 1976, the Nuncio in Switzerland was given instructions to inform Lefebvre that, by special order of Pope Paul VI, he was forbidden to do so. On 25 June 1976, Archbishop Giovanni Benelli, the deputy Secretary of State, wrote directly to Lefebvre, confirming, by special mandate of the Pope, the prohibition to administer the holy orders, and warning him of the canonical penalties for Lefebvre himself and those whom he would ordain. Lefebvre ignored the warnings, and went ahead with the ordinations on 29 June 1976.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: In the sermon on that occasion, Lefebvre explicitly recognized that he might be struck with suspension, and the new priests with an irregularity that could theoretically prevent them from saying Mass. On the next day, 1 July 1976, the Press Office of the Holy See declared that in accordance with canon 2373 of the then Code of Canon Law, Lefebvre was automatically suspended for one year from conferring ordination, and that those whom he had ordained were automatically suspended from the exercise of the order received. It was also announced that the Holy See was examining Lefebvre's disobedience to the orders of the Pope.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: On 11 July 1976, Lefebvre signed a certificate of receipt of a letter from Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, intimating that further penalties would be imposed in accordance with canon 2331 §1 of the then Code of Canon Law concerning obstinate disobedience to legitimate precepts or prohibitions of the Roman Pontiff. He was enjoined, within ten days of receipt of the letter, to take steps "to repair the scandal caused." In a letter of 17 July to Pope Paul VI, Lefebvre declared that he judged his action of 29 June to be legitimate. The Pope considered this response inadequate, and on his instructions the Congregation for Bishops, on 22 July 1976, suspended Lefebvre for an indefinite time from all exercise of holy orders—he could not confer any of the Sacraments, save Reconciliation or Baptism in an emergency (suspension ).


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: A central controversy surrounding the SSPX concerns the consecration by Archbishop Lefebvre and Brazilian bishop Antônio de Castro Mayer of four SSPX priests as bishops in 1988, in violation of the orders of Pope John Paul II.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: By 1987, Archbishop Lefebvre was 81. If he had died at that point, the SSPX could have their members ordained to the priesthood only at the hands of non-SSPX bishops, regarded by Lefebvre as unreliable and non-orthodox. In June 1987, Lefebvre announced his intention to consecrate a successor to the episcopacy. He implied that he intended to do this with or without the approval of the Holy See. In the Catholic Church, a bishop requires the mandate of the Pope if he is to consecrate a bishop, and an unauthorized consecration automatically incurs excommunication. Earlier, Pope Pius XII, in his encyclical , had described the sacramental activity of bishops who had been consecrated without papal approval as "gravely illicit, that is, criminal and sacrilegious". The Roman authorities were grieved by Lefebvre's plan, but they began discussions with him and the SSPX, which led to the signing, on 5 May 1988, of a skeleton agreement between Lefebvre and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the future Pope Benedict XVI.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: On Pope John Paul II's instructions, Cardinal Ratzinger replied to Lefebvre on 30 May, insisting on observance of the agreement of 5 May and adding that, if Lefebvre carried out unauthorized consecrations on 30 June, the promised authorization for the ordination to the episcopacy would be withdrawn.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: On 3 June, Lefebvre wrote that he intended to proceed. On 9 June, the Pope replied with a personal letter, appealing to him to abandon a design that "would be seen as nothing other than a schismatic act, the theological and canonical consequences of which are known to you." Lefebvre did not reply, and the letter was made public on 16 June.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: On 30 June 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre proceeded to ordain to the episcopate four priests of the SSPX. Antônio de Castro Mayer, the retired Bishop of Campos dos Goytacazes, Brazil, assisted in the ceremony. Those consecrated as Bishops were: Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Alfonso de Galarreta, and Richard Williamson.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: The following day, the Congregation for Bishops issued a decree declaring that Archbishop Lefebvre and the four newly ordained bishops had incurred the automatic canonical penalty of excommunication reserved to the Holy See. On the following day, 2 July, Pope John Paul II issued an apostolic letter known as in which he condemned the Archbishop's action. The Pope stated that, since schism is defined in the 1983 Code of Canon Law as "withdrawal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or from communion with the members of the Church subject to him" (canon 751), the consecration "constitute[d] a schismatic act", and that, by virtue of canon 1382 of the Code, it entailed ipso facto excommunication for all the bishops involved.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: Lefebvre argued that his actions had been necessary because the traditional form of the Catholic faith and sacraments would become extinct without Traditionalist clergy to pass them on to the next generation. He called the ordinations ("Operation Survival"), citing in his defense canons 1323 and 1324 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, the first of which says that "a person who acted coerced by grave fear, even if only relatively grave, or due to necessity or grave inconvenience unless the act is intrinsically evil or tends to the harm of souls" is not subject to penalty for violating a law or precept, while the other says "the perpetrator of a violation is not exempt from a penalty, but the penalty established by law or precept must be tempered or a penance employed in its place if the delict was committed [...] by a person who thought in culpable error that one of the circumstances mentioned in can. 1323, nn. 4 or 5 was present."


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: Some members of the SSPX disassociated themselves from the society as a result of Lefebvre's actions and, with the approval of the Holy See, formed a separate society called the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: Discussions between the Holy See and the Society of Saint Pius X towards an eventual reconciliation have been ongoing. For years after the 1988 consecrations, there was little if any dialogue between the SSPX and the Holy See. This state of affairs ended when the society led a large pilgrimage to Rome for the "Great Jubilee" of 2000.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: Nine years later, on 21 January 2009 the Holy See remitted the excommunications of the society's bishops that it had declared at the time of the 1988 consecrations and expressed the hope that all members of the society would follow this up by speedily returning to full communion with the Church.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: Discussions since then have been complex, stemming from the society's insistence that the teachings of the Second Vatican Council on ecumenism, religious liberty, and collegiality are inconsistent with Catholic teaching and doctrine, a claim that the Holy See views as unacceptable, but recent discussions have indicated the possibility of an understanding. In an interview on 4 March 2017 with DICI, the official news organ of the society, Bishop Bernard Fellay stated: "Whether it is a question of religious liberty, collegiality, ecumenism, the new Mass, or even the new rites of the sacraments [...] And now all of a sudden, on these points that have been stumbling blocks, the emissaries from Rome tell us that they are open questions." In the same month of March 2017, Archbishop Guido Pozzo, the prelate in charge of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei", the Roman Curia's organ for traditionalist societies, stated that the Holy See and the society were close to an agreement regularizing the society's status. In a letter of the same month it was announced that Pope Francis authorized diocesan bishops to grant to SSPX priests faculties to officiate at a marriage valid in the Catholic Church in cases where no priest in good standing could do so.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: In July 2017 Bishop Fellay signed a document along with a number of other clergy and academics labeled as a "Filial Correction" of Pope Francis. In twenty-five page document, which was made public in September after receiving no reply from the Holy See, they criticized the Pope for allegedly promoting heresy through various words, actions and omissions during his pontificate.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: The canonical situation of the SSPX and of its clergy has been the subject of controversy since the 1988 Écône consecrations. While the society is not listed in as a recognized society of apostolic life, it has nonetheless benefited from some significant allowances normally granted only to recognized orders and societies. A 1995 letter from the Pontifical Commission stated that there is "no doubt about the validity of the ordination of the priests of the Society of St. Pius X. They are, however, suspended ." In the November–December 2017 edition of the society's publication "The Angelus", Fr. Francois Knittel, SSPX, wrote: "The Church authorities have gradually recognized the liceity and the validity of the ministry performed by the priests of the SSPX."


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: On 27 March 2017, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith communicated that Pope Francis had decided to grant local ordinaries the right to give to a priest in good standing the faculty to preside at the marriage of followers of the society, immediately after which they will participate in a Mass celebrated by an SSPX priest, or, if no priest in good standing can receive the consent of the couple, to give the faculty instead to an SSPX priest. Previously, in 2008, the Pontifical Commission had stated: "The priests of the Society of St. Pius X are [...] prohibited from exercising their priestly functions," going on to conclude that, in the case of matrimony, "these sacraments are invalid," since a suspended priest lacks the proper delegation from the bishop.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: On 20 November 2016, Pope Francis personally and indefinitely extended an allowance he created during the Holy Year of 2015, whereby penitents confessing to priests affiliated with the SSPX "shall validly and licitly receive the absolution of their sins."


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: During an interview with "TV Libertes" on 29 January 2017, Bishop Fellay announced that theological discussions with the Holy See had led to permission for the society to licitly ordain priests: "This summer it was confirmed that the Superior General can freely ordain the priests of the society without having to ask permission from the local bishop."


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: In 2020, Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy and dean of theology at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome, reaffirmed the statement he made in 2011, before Pope Benedict granted certain faculties in favor of SSPX priests. After declaring that "the Masses celebrated by members of the Society of St. Pius X are valid but illicit, i.e., contrary to Canon Law", he said: "The mere fact of assisting at a Mass of this society is not a sin. It would only become so if a person attended this Mass with the deliberate intention of separating himself from communion with the Pope and those in communion with him. I would say, therefore, that a conscientious Catholic should not knowingly attend a Mass celebrated by a priest not in good standing with the Church." He added: "Only if there is objectively no alternative should one attend the Mass celebrated by a priest from the Society of St. Pius X. If one has to do so, then I would say that one may go in good conscience and receive Communion at such a Mass. It would also fulfill the Sunday obligation", and explained that "alternative" is not limited to "Mass in the extraordinary form": a Catholic who seeks this form but finds none available other than the SSPX celebration "should attend an ordinary form Mass or even any Eastern Catholic celebration so as to remain in full Catholic communion".


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: When told by a journalist of InfoVaticana, a provider of religious information founded in Madrid in October 2013, that what Pope Francis had decided in March 2017 was instead that, "from now on, the weddings celebrated by the priests from the FSSPX are going to be recognized," Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, who had not seen the actual document, remarked: "That is a very significant action of the Holy Father, and it also indicates that in some way there must be a reconciliation of the SSPX because basically what the Pope is saying is that the priests in this society, when they witness marriages, are exercising jurisdiction in the Roman Catholic Church." In reality, it is local ordinaries, not the society, that in the document are authorized, if they wish, to delegate jurisdiction to SSPX priests to assist canonically at some marriages.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: The society's view is that, before Pope Francis's authorizations, their priests held "supplied" jurisdiction (power of governance) for confessions and marriages. They received this supplied jurisdiction by law and not "by delegation or by mandate of the Sovereign Pontiff or the diocesan bishops or of regularly appointed parish priests."


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: Since the grants by Pope Francis, the society says that its priests have or can have ordinary jurisdiction for the sacraments of confession and marriage. It adds that, in cases where a diocesan bishop refuses to grant delegation for a marriage, SSPX priests can still use extraordinary jurisdiction.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: Bishop De Castro-Mayer resigned canonically on 20 August 1981; he later participated in the 1988 Écône consecrations, declaring "my presence here at this ceremony is a matter of conscience: It is the duty of a profession of the Catholic Faith before the entire Church." After his retirement, Bishop Mayer founded the Priestly Union of St. Jean-Marie Vianney, which remained closely associated with the SSPX until 2001, when it reconciled with the Holy See.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: The society now has close links with the Priestly Society of Saint Josaphat, led by Father Basil Kovpak, a priest formerly of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, who was definitively excommunicated from the Catholic Church in November 2007 after having Bishop Richard Williamson, then of the SSPX but expelled from the society five years later, ordain two priests and seven deacons for his society in accused violation of canons 1015 §1 and 1017 of the Code of Canon Law.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: In May 2019, the SSPX announced that Vitus Huonder, Bishop of Chur, Switzerland, as per a long stated intention, had retired to one of the society's houses in order "to dedicate himself to prayer and silence, to celebrate the traditional Mass exclusively, and to work for Tradition, the only way of renewing the Church." He was warmly received by the SSPX: "The Society of Saint Pius X appreciates Bishop Huonder’s courageous decision and rejoices to be able to provide him with the spiritual and priestly surroundings that he desires so deeply. May this example be followed by others, so as to 'restore everything in Christ'."


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: In a letter addressed on 1 September 2020 to "Catholic Family News" Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, former Secretary-General of the Vatican City State and former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, said that the work of the SSPX "deserves recognition for not having allowed the flame of Tradition to be extinguished at a moment in which celebrating the ancient Mass was considered subversive and a reason for excommunication. [...] If their fidelity made "disobedience" to the pope inevitable with the episcopal consecrations, thanks to them the Society was able to protect herself from the furious attack of the "Innovators" and by its very existence it allowed the possibility of the liberalization of the Ancient Rite, which until then was prohibited. Its presence also allowed the contradictions and errors of the "conciliar" sect to emerge, always winking at heretics and idolaters but implacably rigid and intolerant towards Catholic Truth."


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: , the society had 637 priests present in 37 countries and active in 35 more, 772 Mass centers, 167 priories, 123 religious brothers, 200 religious sisters, 79 oblates, 204 seminarians in six seminaries, 56 pre-seminarians in three pre-seminaries, more than 100 schools, 7 nursing homes, 4 Carmelite convents, 19 Missionary Sisters of Kenya, and 2 university-level institutes. , the society had 680 priests and 217 seminarians.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: The society is divided into two classes of territorial units called districts and autonomous houses, each headed by a superior. An autonomous house may become a district after three priories have been established within its jurisdiction. The most recent organizational addition of the society is the Autonomous House of Central America and the Caribbean, formed from territory taken from the District of Mexico, erected on 1 October 2017. Over 120 (>20%) of the society's priests are stationed in the District of France.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: The society expanded its mission in Asia and Poland, where the society managed to triple the number of chapels from 2019 to 2021.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: The first seminary founded by the society is the St. Pius X International Seminary located in Écône, Switzerland. Its largest is located in the United States: St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, Dillwyn, VA, and having outgrown its previous facilities, relocated in 2016 from Winona, Minnesota; the former seminary complex continues to house the novitiate of the religious brothers. Other seminaries are located in France ( Seminary, Flavigny-sur-Ozerain), Germany (Sacred Heart of Jesus Seminary, Zaitzkofen), and Argentina (, ). However, due to the closure of Australia's international borders, and unprecedented lockdowns and constraints because of COVID-19, The society's Holy Cross Seminary (Golbourn) can no longer accept seminarians from nearby countries, thereby closing the seminary and moving their present seminarians to other seminaries of the SSPX. The society also runs pre-seminaries for prospective priestly vocations in Italy (Albano Laziale), Brazil (Santa Maria), and the Philippines (Santa Barbara, Iloilo).


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: There have been two major kinds of splits from the SSPX. Two notable splits of the first kind involved priests who viewed the SSPX as too liberal and who use the form that the Mass had before Pope John XXIII. The other kind involved groups who have reconciled with the Holy See and who, like the SSPX, use the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: In the Society of Saint Piux X, a complementarian position with respect to gender roles is upheld; "few married women work, especially once they have children."


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: Richard Williamson, a former bishop of the SSPX who now aligns with the SSPX Resistance, wrote a pastoral letter, in which he stated that "women's trousers, as worn today, short or long, modest or immodest, tight or loose, open or disguised (like the "culottes"), are an assault upon woman's womanhood and so they represent a deep-lying revolt against the order willed by God." "The Atlantic", in covering SSPX, thus stated described their female adherents as being "Women in long, modest skirts [who were loading] vans that had enough seats to accommodate eight or nine kids".


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: After Bishop Richard Williamson, the subject of the complaint by the Anti-Defamation League, denied the use of Nazi gas chambers to massacre Jews in a 2009 interview, the superior general of the society said that, if he repeated his denial, he would be expelled. His actual expulsion in 2012 was for refusing to show due respect and obedience to the SSPX authorities and calling on the superior general to resign. Williamson was later convicted of Holocaust denial by a German court. The society condemns Nazism, following the principles in Pope Pius XI's 1937 encyclical , which denounces Nazi principles and policies and "condemns racial theories and the mistreatment of people because of their race or nationality but does not refer to Hitler or the Nazis by name".


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: The society publishes in its magazine "The Angelus" a collection of quotations praising Pius XII for his work in saving Jews from Nazi persecution and in condemning Nazi principles.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: French Nazi collaborator and war criminal Paul Touvier was arrested in an SSPX priory. The superiors of the priory claimed that had granted him asylum as "an act of charity to a homeless man". They claimed no knowledge about the man's background when he first appeared in the priory. On his death, in 1996, an SSPX Requiem Mass was offered for his soul, upon his request.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: On 16 October 2013, the society offered to perform a funeral for Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke. Priebke had been baptized in a Protestant denomination, but in post-war years he converted to a form of Catholicism with his wife and had his children baptized. He rejected the cult of race as a "mistake that led down a path of no return." The ceremony did not take place due to protests by some 500 people, outside the society's Italian district house in Albano, near Rome. The local authorities of the Catholic Church refused him a public funeral, citing a rule of canon law that, unless they gave some signs of repentance before death, a public funeral must be refused to manifest sinners to whom it cannot be granted without public scandal of the faithful.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: In spite of controversies surrounding Nazism, the society mentioned that Archbishop Lefebvre's own father, René Lefebvre, met his death in the concentration camp at Sonnenburg in February 1944, three years after his arrest by the Gestapo; he died, "his rosary in hand, a victim of Nazi insanity."


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: The society is also known for supporting the far-right, extremist, nationalist, ultra-conservative political party, Civitas in France. Since then, under the new leadership of the said movement, the Civitas is no longer under the auspice of the society and the "chaplaincy" is now held by the Franciscan Capuchin Friars of Morgon, a religious community affiliated to the SSPX. However, Civitas still holds rallies, conferences, and meetings in SSPX chapels and still get endorsements from their priests and the French District itself.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: On 5 April 2017, Uppdrag granskning, a Swedish television program focused on investigative journalism, alleged that four members of the SSPX—three priests and a former seminarian—had molested at least a dozen young people in several countries. The program also stated that evidence of abuse was kept secret by the SSPX and that the priests were allowed to continue in ministry. Nonetheless, three of the four had been expelled from the society by the time that the program was aired.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: Kevin Gerard Sloniker, the former seminarian and the only person accused by name in the program, was expelled from the society's St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in 2005, and began serving a life-sentence in 2015. The remaining three accusations regard priests whose names have been withheld (referred to in the program as Fathers P, S, and M); their accusers have likewise remained anonymous. Nonetheless, P was the subject of a canonical trial presided over by Bishop Fellay, authorized by the Holy See in 2013; he was found guilty, and subsequently ordered to retire to a monastery. "Crux" reports "P refused to go and, according to officials of the SSPX, joined [Bishop] Williamson's Resistance." He along with "Father S" were expelled from the society, and are now affiliated with Williamson's group. "Father M" is currently serving in France, though no criminal charges have been brought against him and the society denies that they are aware of any credible accusations of abuse against the priest.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: In May 2020, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation stated that, as part of its investigation into the four Catholic dioceses in the state, it was also investigating accusations that SSPX members were either perpetrating or covering up clerical sex abuse in the state. The SSPX St. Mary's Rectory in Kansas faced sex abuse allegations. Although the U.S. district of the society, as well as the St. Mary's Rectory denied the said allegations.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: Mexican SSPX priest and former headmaster Father Uribe Silviano Bernabé was sentenced in September 2004 by a Bordeaux criminal court to one year for sexual assaults on an adult woman and a 13-year-old girl. He appealed the sentence and lost on 17 March 2005. He then brought the case to the Court of Cassation in Paris, which upheld the sentence on 26 April 2006.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: On 13 December 2017, Father Frédéric Abbet was sentenced to 5 years by a Brussels appeal court for sexual abuse on a young boy in an SSPX boarding school. He had already faced accusations in his native Switzerland in 2005 but had been acquitted by an unofficial SSPX tribunal. Father Abbet was to serve the prison sentence in his native Switzerland, where it was later discovered he never did serve his prison sentence but instead lived freely in the community.


title: Society of Saint Pius X

text: On 16 February 2018, former school headmaster Father Christophe Roisnel was sentenced to 19 years by the Nanterre criminal court of appeal for multiple counts of rape and acts of torture on female school teachers.


title: Put Your Head on My Shoulder (TV series)

text: Put Your Head on My Shoulder () is a Chinese television series starring Xing Fei, Lin Yi, and Tang Xiaotian. The drama is based on Zhao Qianqian's novel of the same name, and was airing from April 10 until May 16, 2019 on Tencent Video, releasing 2 episodes every Wednesday and Thursday evening while VIP members got a 6-episode head start. A Thai Remake of the series, starring Thitipoom Tachaapaikun (New) and Nilawan Iamchuasawad (Kaimuk), was produced under the same name in 2021.


text: As Si Tu Mo (Xing Fei), an accounting student who wants to enter an advertising company's graduation nears, she is unsure about her future plans. Si Tu Mo likes Fu Pei (Tang Xiaotian), her childhood friend, but is constantly disappointed by his indecisiveness and unreliability. Si Tu Mo, on the other hand, tries out all sorts of things all the time, but is unable to make her own decisions.


text: Her routine is suddenly shaken up when she meets a physics student, Gu Wei Yi (Lin Yi). While living at the dorm, she is forced by her mother to move into an apartment coincidentally owned by Gu Wei Yi's mother. Unbeknown to both, their mothers were classmates who thought their two children would make a good match and set them up. Before they know it, the matched couple begins to fall in love.


text: The series received positive reviews and had a score of 8.1 on Douban. Hotpot.tv ranked it the #5 most romantic drama of 2019. The drama was a success and hit in China and overseas (Thailand) where it achieved a cult following. On May 20, 2019, Lin Yi and costar Xing Fei held a grand fan meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, where a huge crowd of thousands fans gathered.


title: Aisling Loftus

text: Aisling Loftus (born 1 September 1990) is a British actress, best known for portraying Agnes Towler on the ITV series "Mr Selfridge" and Sonya Rostova on the BBC historical drama series "War & Peace".


title: Aisling Loftus

text: Loftus was born in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, the daughter of Irish parents, Paddy and Eileen Loftus; she has an older sister, Aoife. She began acting at age nine at the Carlton Workshops, and later took her A-Levels at the Becket School in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire. She played several small roles in television dramas and films, including "This Is England".


title: Aisling Loftus

text: In December 2018, Loftus married actor Jacob Anderson. She and Anderson are parents of a daughter, born July 2020.


title: Aisling Loftus

text: Loftus made her mainstream television debut in 2000, when she appeared in an episode of "Peak Practice". Subsequently, Loftus has appeared in various television series, including "Casualty", "Doctors", "The Bill", and in the ITV comedy drama "The Fattest Man in Britain", starring Timothy Spall and Bobby Ball.


title: Aisling Loftus

text: In 2008 Loftus was described as a "star of tomorrow" in "Screen International" magazine. She also appeared in Daniel Elliott's short "Jade", which won a Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2009.


title: Aisling Loftus

text: In 2010 Loftus starred in the BBC drama "Five Daughters" as murder victim Gemma Adams. In July of the same year she took the leading female role in another BBC drama, "Dive", by BAFTA award-winning Dominic Savage and Simon Stevens, in a cast that included "Skins" actor Jack O'Connell, Eddie Marsan, Gina McKee, Joseph Mawle and Ewen Bremner. "Dive" was critically acclaimed, Euan Ferguson of "The Observer" predicting that Aisling "Ash" Loftus will be a "phenomenon."


title: Aisling Loftus

text: Loftus played Leonie Fowler in the summer box office hit "Spur of the Moment" by Anya Reiss at the Royal Court Theatre in 2010 in London where she has received favourable reviews with Dominic Cavendish of "The Daily Telegraph" calling her "superb." In February 2017, she played Joan in the fortieth anniversary production at Nottingham Playhouse of "Touched" by Stephen Lowe.


title: Aisling Loftus

text: In 2011 Loftus starred in a new BBC TV film version of "The Borrowers" broadcast on Boxing Day, as Arrietty. This was followed up in 2012 with roles in two BBC series : Jade in "Public Enemies" and Cassandra in "Good Cop" and in 2013 by the role of Agnes Towler in ITV's "Mr. Selfridge". In 2016, she played Sonya Rostova in the BBC drama "War & Peace".


title: Web of Science

text: The Web of Science (WoS; previously known as Web of Knowledge) is a paid-access platform that provides (typically via the internet) access to multiple databases that provide reference and citation data from academic journals, conference proceedings, and other documents in various academic disciplines. It was originally produced by the Institute for Scientific Information.


title: Web of Science

text: A citation index is built on the fact that citations in science serve as linkages between similar research items, and lead to matching or related scientific literature, such as journal articles, conference proceedings, abstracts, etc. In addition, literature that shows the greatest impact in a particular field, or more than one discipline, can be easily located through a citation index. For example, a paper's influence can be determined by linking to all the papers that have cited it. In this way, current trends, patterns, and emerging fields of research can be assessed. Eugene Garfield, the "father of citation indexing of academic literature," who launched the Science Citation Index, which in turn led to the Web of Science, wrote:


title: Web of Science

text: Web of Science is described as a unifying research tool that enables the user to acquire, analyze, and disseminate database information in a timely manner. This is accomplished because of the creation of a common vocabulary, called ontology, for varied search terms and varied data. Moreover, search terms generate related information across categories.


title: Web of Science

text: Acceptable content for Web of Science is determined by an evaluation and selection process based on the following criteria: impact, influence, timeliness, peer review, and geographic representation.


title: Web of Science

text: Web of Science employs various search and analysis capabilities. First, citation indexing is employed, which is enhanced by the capability to search for results across disciplines. The influence, impact, history, and methodology of an idea can be followed from its first instance, notice, or referral to the present day. This technology points to a deficiency with the keyword-only method of searching.


title: Web of Science

text: Second, subtle trends and patterns relevant to the literature or research of interest, become apparent. Broad trends indicate significant topics of the day, as well as the history relevant to both the work at hand, and particular areas of study.


title: Web of Science

text: Expanding the coverage of Web of Science, in November 2009 Thomson Reuters introduced "Century of Social Sciences". This service contains files which trace social science research back to the beginning of the 20th century, and Web of Science now has indexing coverage from the year 1900 to the present. , the multidisciplinary coverage of the Web of Science encompasses 12,000 high impact journals and 160,000 conference proceedings. The selection is made on the basis of impact evaluations and comprise academic journals, spanning multiple academic disciplines. The coverage includes: the sciences, social sciences, the arts, and humanities, and goes across disciplines. However, Web of Science does not index all journals.


title: Web of Science

text: There is a significant and positive correlation between the impact factor and CiteScore. However, an analysis by Elsevier, who created the journal evaluation metric CiteScore, has identified 216 journals from 70 publishers to be in the top 10 percent of the most-cited journals in their subject category based on the CiteScore while they did not have an impact factor. It appears that the impact factor does not provide comprehensive and unbiased coverage of high-quality journals. Similar results can be observed by comparing the impact factor with the SCImago Journal Rank.


title: Web of Science

text: Furthermore, as of September 3, 2014 the total file count of the Web of Science was 90 million records, which included over a billion cited references. This citation service on average indexes around 65 million items per year, and it is described as the largest accessible citation database.


title: Web of Science

text: Titles of foreign-language publications are translated into English and so cannot be found by searches in the original language.


title: Web of Science

text: In 2018, the Web of Science started embedding partial information about the open access status of works, using Unpaywall data.


title: Web of Science

text: After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, on March 11, 2022, Clarivate – which owns Web of Science – announced that it would cease all commercial activity in Russia and immediately close an office there.


title: Web of Science

text: The seven citation indices listed above contain references which have been cited by other articles. One may use them to undertake cited reference search, that is, locating articles that cite an earlier, or current publication. One may search citation databases by topic, by author, by source title, and by location. Two chemistry databases, "Index Chemicus" and "Current Chemical Reactions" allow for the creation of structure drawings, thus enabling users to locate chemical compounds and reactions.


title: Web of Science

text: The following types of literature are indexed: scholarly books, peer reviewed journals, original research articles, reviews, editorials, chronologies, abstracts, as well as other items. Disciplines included in this index are agriculture, biological sciences, engineering, medical and life sciences, physical and chemical sciences, anthropology, law, library sciences, architecture, dance, music, film, and theater. Seven citation databases encompasses coverage of the above disciplines.


title: Web of Science

text: As with other scientific approaches, scientometrics and bibliometrics have their own limitations. In 2010, a criticism was voiced pointing toward certain deficiencies of the journal impact factor calculation process, based on Thomson Reuters Web of Science, such as: journal citation distributions usually are highly skewed towards established journals; journal impact factor properties are field-specific and can be easily manipulated by editors, or even by changing the editorial policies; this makes the entire process essentially non-transparent.


title: Web of Science

text: Regarding the more objective journal metrics, there is a growing view that for greater accuracy it must be supplemented with article-level metrics and peer-review. Studies of methodological quality and reliability have found that "reliability of published research works in several fields may be decreasing with increasing journal rank". Thomson Reuters replied to criticism in general terms by stating that "no one metric can fully capture the complex contributions scholars make to their disciplines, and many forms of scholarly achievement should be considered."


title: Sport in India

text: Sport is a significant part of life in India. The country has a very long sports history, with sports being a part of tradition, culture, finance and entertainment. People in India closely follow various sports and enthusiastically participate in them. Cricket is the most popular spectator sport in the country, and citizens often play it as a recreational activity; it generates the highest television viewership, and features full-capacity audiences in stadiums during international and Indian Premier League (IPL) matches. It is part of popular culture. However, in more recent decades, football has also become another popular sport in terms of broadcast viewership and stadium audience attendance. Kabaddi has grown into the mainstream, as well as badminton, tennis, and athletics. India are the one of the power houses in field hockey. India won World Cup & multiple medals in field hockey in Olympics. During that time, Dhyan Chand was a notable player. Sports such as swimming and badminton are played as recreational activities and for exercise.


title: Sport in India

text: India celebrates its National Sports Day annually on 29 August, on the birthday of India's greatest hockey player, Major Dhyan Chand.


title: Sport in India

text: In recent decades Government of India and Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports of India tried to boost the sport in the nation by launching and frequently organising new national sports events such as Khelo India Youth Games (KIYG), Khelo India Winter Games and Khelo India University Games (KIUG) of Khelo India games in various cities across the nation. Thousands of youngsters participated in it. The first Khelo India School games was held in 2018. The initiative also focused on building new infrastructure. KIYG and KIUG are set up as annual events for youngsters, who represent their states and universities in them. So far, the Sport ministry of India has organised many editions of these games.


title: Sport in India

text: India's diversity in culture, people, and tribes is reflected in the wide variety of sporting disciplines in the country. Due to this, some indigenous sports are popular in some regions such as fighter kite and boat racing (including Vallam kali and Vallomkali).


title: Sport in India

text: Sports such as golf, rugby, boxing, kickboxing, mixed martial arts, and motorsport are popular to some extent in a few places. Wrestling was and is popular in some states.


title: Sport in India

text: Indians participate in scuba diving, boating, surfing and kiteboarding in coastal tourist areas of Goa state, Tarkarli of Maharashtra, Rameshwaram, Netrani Island of Karnataka, Pondicherry, Lakshadweep Islands and in Andaman and Nicobar Islands.


title: Sport in India

text: Professional wrestling and Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) are popular sports among young audiences and generate high television viewership. Some Indian wrestlers have achieved great success at the international level in it. MMA sport has been seeing a massive surge in India in the last few years and has gained significant popularity. There are a few MMA promotions operating in the country.


title: Sport in India

text: Cricket became widely popular after Indian cricket team's 1983 World Cup victory. During the last couple of decades, India became a cricket powerhouse and a dominating team. The Board of Control for Cricket in India and the Indian Premier League (IPL) are the richest cricket governing body and cricket league in the world, respectively.


title: Sport in India

text: India has hosted the Cricket World Cup thrice and won it twice. Field hockey is the most successful sport for India at the Olympic Games; the Indian men's team have won twelve Olympic medals including eight gold medals. To some extent, popular sports are swimming, shooting, boxing, squash, weightlifting, gymnastics, mountain-climbing, skiing, table tennis, basketball, bodybuilding and volleyball. Popular indigenous sports include chess, kho kho, cycling, polo, snooker, and rugby. Cycling sport is becoming a popular recreational activity and exercise in India.


title: Sport in India

text: Kabaddi is an indigenous sport, considered as one of the fastest-growing sports in the nation, it generates significant television viewership. The Indian national kabbadi team has won a number of matches and editions of Asian Games, South Asian Games, and Asian Kabaddi Championship, as well as all of the three seasons of the Kabaddi World Cup (Standard style) and Women's Kabaddi World Cup (Circle Style). India men's team and women's team both are the most successful teams internationally.


title: Sport in India

text: The country has hosted, co-hosted several international sporting events, most notably the 1951 and 1982 Asian Games, the 1987, 1995 and 2016 South Asian Games, the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the 2014 Lusofonia Games, the 1987, 1996, 2011, 2016, 2021 Men's Cricket world cups and the 1978, 1997, 2013, 2016 Women's Cricket world cups. India has hosted editions of SAFF Championship in 1999, 2011, 2015; SAFF Women's Championship in 2016 and junior FIFA world cups such as 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup, 2022 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup of Football.


title: Sport in India

text: India will host the 2023 Cricket World Cup, 2026 ICC T20 World Cup, 2031 Cricket World Cup, and 2025 Women's Cricket World Cup.


title: Sport in India

text: Domestic professional commercial sports leagues in the country include the Indian Premier League (cricket), Indian Super League and I-League (football), Pro Kabbadi (Kabaddi), Hockey India League (field hockey), Premier Badminton League (Badminton), Ultimate Table Tennis league (Table Tennis), Prime Volleyball League (Volleyball) and Ultimate Kho Kho league (Kho–kho).


title: Sport in India

text: The major international sporting events annually held in India include the ATP 250 Maharashtra Open of Tennis, Indian Open, golf, the India Open of badminton and India Open of Table tennis.


title: Sport in India

text: The annual Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna is India's highest award for achievement in sports, while the Dronacharya Award is awarded for excellence in coaching.


title: Sport in India

text: The world's oldest stadium with terraced stands was constructed at Dholavira, Gujarat during third millennium BCE. Two stadiums have been identified at the ancient site, one is considered a ceremonial ground, another, a small stadium.


title: Sport in India

text: The importance of sports was also evident in India in the Vedic era. Physical culture in ancient India was fuelled by religious rights. The mantra in the Atharvaveda says, "Duty is in my right hand and the fruits of victory in my left." In terms of an ideal, these words hold the same sentiments as the traditional Olympic Oath: "For the Honour of my Country and the Glory of Sport."


title: Sport in India

text: The modern game of badminton has developed from an old children's game known in England as battledore and shuttlecock, a game popular in ancient India. The battledore was a paddle and the shuttlecock a small feathered cork, now usually called a "bird".


title: Sport in India

text: India has a rich heritage of Martial art. Bodhidharma an Indian monk from southern India travelled to ancient China and developed Kung-fu in prestigious Shaolin Temple. It is also said that he founded the Zen Buddhism branch there. Kalaripayattu is practised by some as a tradition martial art in South India. As per the Mahabharata and Ramayana, Bhima and Hanuman were the greatest "Gadadhari (" ) and earlier were accomplished wrestlers.


title: Sport in India

text: Games like chess and snakes and ladders originated from the ancient Indian games "chaturanga" and "gyan chauper", respectively; these were later transmitted to foreign countries, where they were further modernized.


title: Sport in India

text: Several Indian variations of tag, such as kabaddi and kho-kho, are believed to have originated in prehistoric times, with the tag variant atya-patya finding mention in the Naṟṟiṇai (written in 300 CE).


title: Sport in India

text: During the rule of the Mughal Empire, a form of wrestling known as "pehlwani" developed, by combining native "malla-yuddha" with influences from Persian "varzesh-e bastani".


title: Sport in India

text: During the colonial period, British India competed at six Olympic Games, notably winning medals in field hockey.


title: Sport in India

text: Snooker originated in the late 19th century among British Army officers stationed in India. Modern polo originated in British India in the 19th century, from Manipur, where the game was known as Sagol Kangjei, Kanjai-bazee, or Pulu. The name "polo" is the anglicized version of the latter. The first polo club was established in Silchar, Assam, in 1833. The oldest polo club still in existence is the Calcutta Polo Club, which was established in 1862.


title: Sport in India

text: Dorabji Tata, with the support of Dr. A.G. Noehren, then director of YMCA, established the Indian Olympic Association in 1927.


title: Sport in India

text: One of the worlds' earliest football clubs, the Mohun Bagan FC was established in the 1880s in India. It is India's oldest professional football club. It is older than many famous European football clubs such as Real Madrid CF. The club was formed when The Football Association began making standard rules for football and even before FIFA, the international governing body of football was founded.


title: Sport in India

text: India hosted the Asian Games in New Delhi in 1951 and 1982. The current Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports was initially set up as the Department of Sports in 1982 at the time of organisation of the Games in New Delhi. Its name was changed to the Department of Youth Affairs & Sports during celebration of the International Youth Year in 1985. India has also hosted or co-hosted several international sporting events, including the 1987, 1996 and 2011 Cricket World Cups, the 2003 Afro-Asian Games, the 2010 Hockey World Cup, and the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Major international sporting events annually held in India include the Chennai Open, the Mumbai Marathon and the Delhi Half Marathon. The country hosted the first Indian Grand Prix in 2011. The biggest stadium in the world, Narendra Modi Stadium is present in India.


title: Sport in India

text: The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports is the dedicated ministry of Government of India for sport in the country. Anurag Thakur is the incumbent sports minister of India.


title: Sport in India

text: The sports ministry is run by a Secretary to the Government of India, and is usually headed by a Minister of State. A ministry-recognised National Sports Federation Of India (NSFOI) represents each Olympic and non-Olympic sport, the only major exception being the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), which is not an NSFOI. As of 2019, 56 NSFs are recognised by the ministry. The presence of politicians at the helm of many such federations has been criticised for causing inefficiency and corruption.


title: Sport in India

text: For each sport, India has a separate national sports governing body. These include the All India Football Federation for football, National Rifle Association of India for shooting sport, Boxing Federation of India for Boxing etc.


title: Sport in India

text: Sports Authority of India, the field arm of the ministry, supports and nurtures talent in youth, and provides them with the requisite infrastructure, equipment, hostels, diet, training-coaching facilities and competition exposure.


title: Sport in India

text: The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) is responsible for the Indian contingent's participation in the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, Asian Games (outdoor, indoor and beach), and South Asian Games, Lusofonia Games, and World Games and Military World Games. The selection of the national teams is done by the respective national federations and then recommended to the IOA for official sponsorship for participation in those games.


title: Sport in India

text: The Paralympic Committee of India is responsible for the Indian contingent's participation in the Paralympic Games and Asian Para Games.


title: Sport in India

text: The All India Sports Council for the Deaf is responsible for India's participation in the Deaflympics Games. The Special Olympics Bharat is responsible for India's participation in the Special Olympics.


title: Sport in India

text: The Association of Indian Universities is responsible for India participating in the Universiade Games. The School Games Federation of India is responsible for India's participation in the Gymnasiade Games.


title: Sport in India

text: A single athlete, Norman Pritchard, represented India in the 1900 Olympics, winning two silver medals. India sent its first national team to the Olympics in 1920, and has participated in every Summer Olympic Games ever since. India has also competed at several Winter Olympic Games since 1964.


title: Sport in India

text: As of 2021, India has won a total of 35 Summer Olympic medals. India won its first gold medal in men's field hockey in the 1928 Olympic Games. On winning the 10m air rifle event at the 2008 Olympics, Abhinav Bindra became the first Indian to win an individual gold medal at the Olympic Games, and India's first gold medal since 1980, when the men's field hockey team had won the gold.


title: Sport in India

text: India has competed in all but four editions of the Commonwealth Games, starting at the second Games in 1934. India has hosted the Games once, in 2010 at Delhi. India is the fourth-most successful country at the games; it has won a total of 504 medals, including 181 gold medals.


title: Sport in India

text: India has participated in every edition of the Asian Games, and has hosted the Games in 1951 and 1982 at New Delhi. As of 2018, India is the sixth-most successful country, winning 671 medals, including 139 golds. India has won at least one gold medal in each tournament.


title: Sport in India

text: India has participated in every edition of the World Games. India has won total 5 medals including one gold.


title: Sport in India

text: India has participated in every edition of the South Asian Games. India has No.1 Rank in this Multi–sport competition.


title: Sport in India

text: India has also participate in the Lusofonia Games. India's performance very well in this multi–sport event.


title: Sport in India

text: India also participated in Deaflympics Games, Special Olympics Games, Military World Games, Universiade Games, Gymnasiade Games.


title: Sport in India

text: The National Games of India are conducted by the Indian Olympic Association and are meant to identify national sporting talents who can be selected for the Olympics. The first National Games, then called the Indian Olympic Games, were held in Lahore in 1924, while the first modern Games were held in New Delhi in 1985.


title: Sport in India

text: The game of archery has historical significance, as royals in the ancient days used to practice archery. Modern-day archery in India began in the early 1970s, before its introduction as an Olympic event in 1972, and it was formalised in 1973 when the Archery Association of India (AAI) came into existence. Since its inception, AAI has been creating an organised structure for the sport. India has been producing some world class players who are the medal hopefuls in international events of archery.


title: Sport in India

text: India is considered a backward country in Athletics. Very few Indian athletes have won medals and championships at international level. As of 28 October 2022, It have won three medals in summer Olympics. Athletics Federation of India is the national governing body of Athletics sport in India.


title: Sport in India

text: Norman Pritchard was the first Indian athlete, sprinter who won an Olympic medal for India, he won two silver medals in 200m sprint and 200m hurdle, track and field event in 1900 Paris Olympic.


title: Sport in India

text: Neeraj Chopra won the first ever Olympic gold medal in track and field event for India, at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. He won the medal in Javelin throw sport. It is only second individual Olympic gold medal by an Indian so far.


title: Sport in India

text: Anju Bobby George made history when she won the bronze medal in Women's long jump at the 2003 World Championships in Athletics in Paris. With this achievement, she became the first Indian athlete ever to win a medal in a World Championships in Athletics jumping 6.70 mll 2010 Milkha Singh was the only athlete to win an individual gold medal at a Commonwealth Games but at 2010 Commonwealth Games, Krishna Punia created history by winning the Women's discus throw gold medal for India after 52 years and as first woman to win a gold in athletics at Commonwealth Games. In the same edition of Commonwealth games Manjeet Kaur, Sini Jose, Ashwini Akkunji & Mandeep Kaur won the Women's 4 × 400 m (Relay) gold medal. At 2014 Commonwealth Games Vikas Gowda won the Men's Discus Throw gold medal.


title: Sport in India

text: Hima Das is the only Indian track athlete to win a medal at any IAAF global event. She won the gold medal in Women's 400 metres at 2018 IAAF World U20 Championships at Tampere, Finland, on 12 July 2018, clocking a time of 51.46 seconds. She is the second gold medalist in athletics at IAAF World U20 Championships after Neeraj Chopra who won men's javelin throw gold at 2016 IAAF World U20 Championships by setting world junior record with a throw of 86.48 m. Later Neeraj went on to win the men's javelin throw gold at 2018 Commonwealth Games. In 2020, at the Tokyo Olympics, he became the first Indian athlete to win an Olympic gold medal in men's javelin throw. At 2016 Summer Olympics Lalita Babar becomes the first Indian athlete since 1984 to reach Olympics finale in the event of Women's 3000 metres steeplechase, before her, P.T. Usha reach the finale of Women's 400 metres hurdles at 1984 Summer Olympics.


title: Sport in India

text: P.T. Usha won multiple gold medals in different editions of Asian Games and Asian Athletics Championships. Lavy Pinto was the first Indian to win a gold medal in the Asian Games which he won in the first Asian Games held at New Delhi in 1951 in the 100- and 200-meter categories. Christine Brown, Stephie D'Souza, Violet Peters, Mary D'Souza gave India its first women's athletics gold medal when they won 4 × 100 m relay in 1954 Asian Games but current Asian record is held by Priyanka Pawar, Tintu Luka, Mandeep Kaur, Machettira Raju Poovamma when they won Women's 4 × 400 metres relay at 2014 Asian Games clocking 3:28:68. Kamaljeet Sandhu was the first Indian female athlete to win individual gold medal at any Asian games by winning 400m track event at 1970 Asian Games. Sunita Rani holds the current Asian record in 1500 m track event winning at Busan 2002 Asian Games clocking 4:06:03.


title: Sport in India

text: Madhurjya Borah, an Indian triathlete holds the silver medal for the South Asian Triathlon Championship.


title: Sport in India

text: In May 2016, Arunaabh Shah from Delhi became the first Indian male and the youngest Indian to finish Ultraman, at Ultraman Australia.


title: Sport in India

text: Neeraj Chopra became first Indian athlete to win the prestigious Diamond League trophy at Zürich in 2022. He did this by throwing a javelin 88.44 m. On 24 July 2022, he won the silver medal in the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Oregon, USA; he is the only athlete from India to have done so.


title: Sport in India

text: In the 2022 Commonwealth Games, Avinash Sable and Priyanka Goswami won the first ever silver medals for India in the games' history and in any major multinational events in the 3000m steeplechase and 10,000m racewalking events respectively.


title: Sport in India

text: Badminton is played in India and is one of the popular sports in the nation. People often play it as a recreational activity. It is most popular in South India, with the region having multiple badminton academies and coaching facilities; this is why many accomplished shuttlers are from South India.


title: Sport in India

text: The Badminton Association of India is the national governing body of badminton in India. It organises multiple national tournaments.


title: Sport in India

text: In 2022, the Indian Badminton team created history by winning the Thomas Cup tournament. It is a prestigious Badminton tournament.


title: Sport in India

text: P. V. Sindhu, Srikanth Kidambi, and the doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty are ranked amongst the Top-10 in the current BWF world rankings. Prakash Padukone was the first player from India to achieve the world number one spot in the game, after which Srikanth Kidambi became the second male player to make it to the top spot in April 2018. Saina Nehwal is the first female player from India to achieve the World number one spot, which she did in April 2015, and the first Indian badminton player to win a medal at the Olympic Games.


title: Sport in India

text: Sindhu is the first Indian to become the Badminton World Champion, which she achieved in 2019, and the only badminton player from India to win two consecutive medals at the Olympic Games.


title: Sport in India

text: The most successful doubles player from India is Jwala Gutta, who is the only Indian to have been ranked in the Top-10 of two categories. She peaked at no. 6 with Valiyaveetil Diju in mixed doubles and at no. 10 with Ashwini Ponnappa in women's doubles.


title: Sport in India

text: Other successful players include Pullela Gopichand, Aparna Popat, Syed Modi, Chetan Anand, Parupalli Kashyap, Prannoy Kumar, Sameer Verma, Lakshya Sen, Ashwini Ponnappa and N. Sikki Reddy.


title: Sport in India

text: Prakash Padukone and Pullela Gopichand both won the All England Open in 1980 and 2001 respectively, making them the only Indians to win the prestigious title.


title: Sport in India

text: Saina Nehwal won the bronze medal in the individual women's competition at the 2012 London Olympic Games, the first Olympic medal for the country in badminton. P. V. Sindhu won the second and the third Olympic medals in badminton for India, winning a silver and a bronze medal at the


title: Sport in India

text: India has also won twelve medals at the BWF World Championships, with P. V. Sindhu being the only Indian badminton player to have won the Gold, which she achieved in 2019. At the BWF World Junior Championships, Saina Nehwal is the only gold medalist for India, which she achieved in 2008. At the Badminton Asia Junior Championships, P. V. Sindhu and Lakshya Sen are the only gold medalists for India, winning in their respective categories in 2012 and 2018 respectively.


title: Sport in India

text: Boxing is a highly profiled sport in India, and although it is a regular medal-holder at the Asian Games and Commonwealth Games. Indian boxers have achieved considerable success in Amateur boxing but not in Professional boxing. In November 2007, India's Mary Kom won the best boxer title and secured a hat-trick of titles. During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Vijender Singh won a bronze medal in the middleweight division, and Akhil Kumar and Jitender Kumar qualified for the quarterfinals. Akhil Kumar, Jitender Kumar, A.L. Lakra, and Dinesh Kumar each won a bronze medal at the 2008 World Championship. India's lone female boxer, Kom, won the bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympic Games.


title: Sport in India

text: Field Hockey is a popular sport in Odisha state. Until the mid-1970s, India men's team dominated international field hockey, winning even Olympic gold medals and won the 1975 Men's Hockey World Cup. Since then, barring a gold medal at the 1980 Olympics, and a bronze medal at Tokyo 2020 Olympics, India's performance in field hockey has been dismal, as Australia, Netherlands and Germany improved. Its decline is also due to the change in rules of the game, introduction of artificial turf, and internal politics in Indian field hockey bodies. The popularity of field hockey has also declined massively parallel to the decline of the Indian hockey team. Throughout the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, the standard of Indian hockey greatly deteriorated, with a low point occurring in 2008, after the Men's team failed to qualify for the 2008 Olympics and finishing last in the 2012 Olympics.


title: Sport in India

text: However, since the mid-2010s the men's team has undergone a gradual revival at the regional, continental, and global stage, becoming runners up at the 2014 Commonwealth Games and winning 2014 Asian Games gold. Despite bowing out at the quarter final stage of the 2016 Rio Olympics following a loss to Belgium, India would capture the 2017 Men's Hockey Asia Cup title, restoring consistent dominance in Asia. A marked Olympic improvement was witnessed at the 2020 games in Tokyo, when India captured the bronze medal, signifying the first medal and highest placing at the tournament in 41 years - since 1980. Currently, the Indian men's team is 5th in the rankings of the Fédération Internationale de Hockey sur Gazon (FIH, English:International Hockey Federation), the international governing body of field hockey and indoor field hockey.


title: Sport in India

text: The Women's team came of age in 1980 when they first participated at the Summer Olympics and achieved the fourth place. The first golden moment for the team was in 1982 at the Asian Games. Since then not much of happening moments in the team history, though in 2016 after 34 years, it is a little hope when Indian women's team qualified for the Summer Olympics and they went on to win the 2017 Women's Hockey Asia Cup claiming the Asian dominance after 2004. India Women's team failed to win any medal in the Women's Hockey World Cup. The present team is ranked 10th by the Fédération Internationale de Hockey.


title: Sport in India

text: India has hosted three Men's Hockey World Cups–one in 1982 in Mumbai, another in 2010 in Delhi, where they finished fifth and eighth respectively, and the third at Bhubaneswar in 2018. India also hosted the annual Hockey Champions Trophy in 1996, 2005 2014 and 2016. Until 2008, the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) was the apex body for hockey in the country. However, following revelations of corruption and other scandals in the IHF, the federation was dissolved and de-recognised, and a new apex body for Indian hockey called Hockey India (HI) was formed on 20 May 2009, with support from the IOA and former hockey players. HI, recognised by the International Hockey Federation (FIH), has the sole mandate to govern and conduct all activities for both men's and women's field hockey in India. Although the IHF was reinstated in 2010, it is not recognised by the FIH. The IHF conducts a franchise-based tournament called World Series Hockey (WSH), with its first season conducted in 2012. However, it is not approved by HI or the FIH.


title: Sport in India

text: HI also conducts a franchise-based tournament called the Hockey India League (HIL). Its first season was held in 2013, It is inspired from IPL. It is recognised by the FIH, which has also decided to provide a 30-day window for the forthcoming seasons so all top players can participate.


title: Sport in India

text: Football was introduced to India during the British colonial period. All India Football Federation is national governing body for football in India. It is also known by its abbreviation 'AIFF'. It is affiliated to FIFA, the international governing body of football and Asian Football Federation (AFF).


title: Sport in India

text: Although India has never played in any FIFA World Cups. India did qualify for the 1950 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, however it did not participate because the team was not allowed to play barefoot. Some also excuse that AIFF did not have money to travel to Brazil that time. But this 'barefoot' excuse is false according to Los Angeles Times's 19 July 2011 article, FIFA was ready to give money to Indian team to travel to Brazil for World Cup, so money was not a problem, some journalist who cover football said in that article, Indian football federation wasn't aware how big is FIFA football World cup that time, and considered it as another event and use to consider Olympics biggest tournament, also there was issue in team selection. India did not participate because FIFA did not allowed to play barefoot, it was just a lie to cover-up failure of AIFF. It was a 'historical blunder' done by AIFF according to a book "'Box to box: 75 years of the Indian football team"' authored by sports journalist Jaydeep Basu, in his book he reveled that, Indian football team did not play 1950 FIFA World Cup because, ignorance, short-sightedness, lack of confidence in the players and misplaced priorities on behalf of the All India Football Federation'.


title: Sport in India

text: In 1948 Summer Olympics, Indian team drew great attention of the world by stopping France on 2-1. India lost that match.


title: Sport in India

text: India was an Asian powerhouse in football in the 1950s and 1960s. During this golden era, India created history as the first Asian team to reach semi-finals in an Olympic football tournament in 1956 Summer Olympics at Melbourne and Neville D'Souza became the first Asian and Indian to score a hat-trick (record remains unbeaten) in an Olympic match. India also finished as runners-up in the 1964 AFC Asian Cup. But later on, the standard of football started to decline due to lack of professionalism and fitness culture. India currently ranks 105th in the FIFA rankings as of 12 August 2021.


title: Sport in India

text: Football is, nevertheless, widely popular both as a spectator sport, and as a participation sport in some parts of the country such as Kerala, West Bengal, Karnataka, Goa and the Northeast. The India national football team and India women's national football team represents India in all FIFA , Asian Football Federation and international, friendly tournaments in men's and women's football respectively.


title: Sport in India

text: Indian Super League and I-League are deemed as top tier football league in India, earlier is most attended by audience in stadium and witnessed on TV.


title: Sport in India

text: In June 1937, at the Army Headquarters, Shimla, the AIFF was formed at a meeting of the representatives of football associations of six regions where the game was very popular in those days. It is the governing body for football in India. Other major domestic competitions for men's football include the I-League second Division in the Indian League System and the annual knock-out style Federation Cup. For women's football, the India women's football championship.


title: Sport in India

text: European leagues, such as the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga and the UEFA Champions League, which are very popular among Indian football fans, especially in metropolitan cities. Other European top leagues such as UEFA Europa League, Germany's Bundesliga, Italy's Serie A and France's Ligue 1 are broadcast on television in India.


title: Sport in India

text: The nation has hosted 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup, this was the first FIFA junior football world cup held in India. To boost raise interest in youth football in before the 2017 U-17 World Cup, India launched the Mission XI Million programme. The matches were held from 6 to 28 October in the cities of New Delhi, Kolkata, Kochi, Navi Mumbai, Guwahati and Margao.


title: Sport in India

text: In club football, rivalry between Mohan Bagan and East Bengal FC of West Bengal in notable, it is dubbed as Kolkata Derby and viewers attend it in huge numbers. The rivalry between India-Pakistan in football also generate interest in fans.


title: Sport in India

text: Football is most popular in Indian states such as Mizoram, Manipur, West Bengal, Kerala, Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Goa and Tamilnadu etc. As of 2021, in ISL teams, 25% players was from Mizoram and Manipur states of Northeast India. Most of the players of Indian national football team are from these northeast states. It have significant number of football clubs such as Aizawl FC, Shillong Lajong FC, Neroca FC etc. Which play in I-League. Northeast states are considered as breeding ground of football players for Indian football team, ISL and I-League.


title: Sport in India

text: Golf is a growing sport in India. It is especially popular among the wealthier classes, but has not yet caught on with others due to the expenses involved in playing.


title: Sport in India

text: The most successful Indian golfers are Jeev Milkha Singh and Anirban Lahiri. Singh won three titles on the European Tour, four on the Japan Golf Tour, and six on the Asian Tour. His highest world ranking was 28 March 2009. Singh has won the Asian Tour Order of Merit twice. Meanwhile, Lahiri has two European Tour wins and seven Asian Tour wins. He qualified for the 2015 Presidents Cup.


title: Sport in India

text: Other Indians who have won the Asian Tour Order of Merit are Jyoti Randhawa in 2002 (the first Indian to do so), and Arjun Atwal, who went on in 2010 to become the first Indian-born player to become a member of the US-based PGA Tour and win the 2010 Wyndham Championship.


title: Sport in India

text: In golf at the Asian Games, India's men's golf team won gold at the 1982 Asian Games, and silver at the 2006 Asian Games. Lakshman Singh won the individual gold at the 1982 Asian Games.


title: Sport in India

text: There are numerous golf courses all over India, and a Professional Golf Tour of India. The main tournament is the Hero Indian Open, co-sanctioned by the Asian Tour and European Tour.


title: Sport in India

text: In Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Aditi Ashoka finished at fourth position in women Golf Competition. It was best ever performance by an Indian golfer at Olympics.


title: Sport in India

text: Gymnastics is not widely played, participated in India, due to lack of facilities, exposure, encouragement, championships, sponsorships and coaching. But the Sport gained headlines after the historic performance of Deepa Karmakar in Rio Olympics, where she reached till the 4th position in the final in her debut. She missed the Olympic Bronze medal by just 0.15 points to Giulia Steingrubber of Switzerland. The success made her well known sportspersons in the nation and encouraged new girls and boys to play Gymnastic sport.


title: Sport in India

text: Gymnastics Federation of India is the official governing body for Gymnastics sport in India. It organises various tournaments around the year, it is recognised by Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports of India.


title: Sport in India

text: Ashish Kumar won the first-ever medal in gymnastics for India, a bronze in 2010 Commonwealth Games, he also won a silver medal in the Men's vault in it.


title: Sport in India

text: It was Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, that Dipa Karmakar from Tripura won the bronze medal in the Women's vault final. Her second vault, the most difficult vault with a D-score of 7, the Produnova vault, named after famous Yelena Produnova of Russia, also known as the "vault of death" due to its difficulty and likelihood of injury, which she executed with a score of 15.1 (D-7, Ex- 8.1) which contributed to her winning the bronze medal. With this attempt she became fifth gymnast to ever execute the Produnova just after legendary gymnast Oksana Chusovitina who executed multiples times. In October 2015, Karmakar became the first Indian gymnast to qualify for a final stage at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. Later in 2016 when she qualified for Rio Olympics, she became first Indian gymnast to do so and also hours after her qualification at 2016 Gymnastics Olympic Test Event she clinched gold medal in Women's vault event stunning Oksana Chusovitina with her prudunova again who came second to her. On 6 July 2016, FIG honored Dipa by naming her "World Class Gymnast". At Rio Olympics she achieved fourth place in vaults. After a long break due to injury when she ran for vaults and landed with a gold at World Challenge Cup series.


title: Sport in India

text: Tennis is a popular sport among Indians in urban areas. Tennis has gained popularity after the success of Vijay Amritraj, he was India's first and so far only singles player who reached quarterfinal of Wimbledon grandslam. He reached two times to the quarterfinals. Amritraj was notable player in the 1960s, 1970s. He is the first Indian singles tennis player who was in top 50 in WTA rankings . Once he was world number 16 singles player. His brother also was a professional tennis player.


title: Sport in India

text: All India Tennis Association, is the national governing body for Tennis in India. It is affiliated to International Tennis Federation (ITF), the governing body for Tennis in the world. Maharashtra Open is the biggest international tennis tournament in India. It is an ATP Tour 250 tournament, annually held in Pune, in which top players around the world participate in men's singles and doubles.


title: Sport in India

text: Indians are not successful in singles as they are in doubles. India is considered as good in Tennis's doubles category. Indians has won multiple Tennis Grand Slam in men's doubles or mixed doubles category. Players such as Leander Paes won a singles bronze medal at the 1996 Olympics. Since the late 1990s India has had impressive results in Grand Slam doubles, Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi have won many men's doubles and mixed doubles Grand Slam titles. Sania Mirza is the most notable Indian woman tennis player, having won a WTA title and breaking into the Top 30 WTA rankings, also winning three Grand Slam doubles events, the first at Wimbledon in 2015. In singles Somdev Devvarman and Yuki Bhambri got some success in ATP Tour. Yuki was the Australian Open junior singles champion in 2009. Rohan Bopanna has won two mixed doubles titles. On the women's side, Ankita Raina and Karman Kaur Thandi was in the top 200.


title: Sport in India

text: The National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) was founded in 1951 with a view to promote and popularize the shooting sports in India, is the governing body for shooting sport in India. The country have won many medals internationally in various forms of this sport.


title: Sport in India

text: Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore won first Olympic medal in shooting for India, he won silver in Athens 2004 Summer Olympics in Double trap Rifle shooting, he also have won 3 commonwealth gold medals and one silver and a silver and bronze in Asian games.


title: Sport in India

text: Abhinav Bindra won the first Olympic gold medal in shooting at 2008 Beijing Olympics. It was the first individual Olympic gold medal by an Indian in Olympics.


title: Sport in India

text: Gagan Narang won Bronze medal 2012 Summer Olympics in 10 meter Air rifle shooting event. He won 4 gold medals in Commonwealth Games of 2006 at Melbourne, among these two he won with Abhinav Bindra in team event.


title: Sport in India

text: Karnam Malleswari won a bronze medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, making her the first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal. The headquarters of the Indian Weightlifting Federation is in New Delhi. The federation is affiliated with the Indian Olympic Association (Delhi), and is also a member of the Asian Weightlifting Federation (Tehran) and International Weightlifting Federation (IWF, Budapest).


title: Sport in India

text: In 2021, Saikhom Mirabai Chanu won silver medal in 49 kg category in 2020 Summer Olympics held in Tokyo, Japan. In 2022, she won Gold at Barmingham Commonwealth games.


title: Sport in India

text: Considered one of the most ancient and oldest sports in the world, wrestling in India has a glorious past. The sport of wrestling began its journey in India several centuries ago, during the Middle Ages. Wrestling is among the most prestigious and oldest events in the Olympic Games. It was included in the Olympics in 708 BC. In ancient times, wrestling in India was mainly used as a way to stay physically fit. It was also used as a military exercise without any weapons. Wrestling in India is also known as "dangal," and it is the basic form of a wrestling tournament.


title: Sport in India

text: In India, wrestling is mostly known as "Malla-Yuddha". Wrestling was mentioned in ancient times, found in the Sanskrit epic of Indian history, "Mahabharata". One of the premier characters in Mahabharata, Bhima, was considered a great wrestler. Other great wrestlers included Jarasandha, Duryodhana, and Karna. Another Indian epic, Ramayana, also mentions wrestling in India, describing Hanuman as one of the greatest wrestlers of that time. The 13th-century "Malla Purana" references a group of Gujarati Brahmin wrestlers known as Jyesthimallas.


title: Sport in India

text: Table tennis is a popular indoor recreation sport in India, which has caught on in states including West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. The Table Tennis Federation of India is the official governing body of the sport. India, which is ranked 30th in the world, has produced a single player ranked in the top 50, Sharat Kamal.


title: Sport in India

text: The Swimming Federation of India (SFI) is the national governing body for aquatic sports in India. Legally, it is a non-profit association registered under the "West Bengal Societies Registration Act, 1861". The Federation holds elections for its office bearers every four years. The SFI currently oversees competition in the sports of swimming, masters swimming, synchronized swimming, diving, high diving, and water polo. It is affiliated to FINA, and the Asia Swimming Federation (ASF).


title: Sport in India

text: Sajan Prakash and Srihari Natraj became the first-ever Indian swimmers to qualify for the Olympic Games (2020 Olympics) by breaching the A standard time.


title: Sport in India

text: Basketball is a popular sport in India, played in almost every school, although very few people follow it professionally. India has both men's and women's national basketball teams. Both teams have hired head coaches who have worked extensively with NBA players and now aim to popularise the game in India. Satnam Singh Bhamara officially marks the first player from India to be selected in the NBA by being taken by the Dallas Mavericks as the 52nd pick of the 2015 NBA draft, as well as the first player to be drafted straight out of high school as a postgraduate.


title: Sport in India

text: The "Young Cagers", as the national team is nicknamed, made one Olympic appearance in basketball, and appeared 20 times in the Asian Championship. India is currently ranked 58th in the world in basketball. The Indian national team had its best result at the 1975 Asian Championship, when the team finished ahead of teams including the Philippines, one of Asia's basketball strongholds. Internationally, one of the most recognised Indian basketball players has been Sozhasingarayer Robinson. Affiliated into the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) since 1936, India has one of Asia's longest basketball traditions.


title: Sport in India

text: India's women had their best result at the recent 2011 FIBA Asia Championship for Women when they finished sixth. The team has several internationally known players including Geethu Anna Jose, who was invited to tryouts for the WNBA in 2011.


title: Sport in India

text: Volleyball is a popular recreation sport played all over India, both in rural and urban areas. India is ranked fifth in Asia, and 27th in the world. In the youth and junior levels, India came in second in the 2003 World Youth Championships. The Indian senior men's team is ranked 46th in the world. A major problem for the sport is the lack of sponsors.


title: Sport in India

text: Boat racings are popular in southern India. In Kerala many boat races are organised annually, champakulam moolam baot race, Kumarakom boat race, Payippad Jalotsavam, President's Trophy boat race, Aranmula boat race, Champions Boat League , Vallm kali, Nehru Trophy Boat Race are organised in July.


title: Sport in India

text: Indian flat water kayakers are an emerging powerhouse on the Asian circuit. Outside of professional flat water kayaking, there is very limited recreational kayaking. The potential to generate interest in flat water kayaking is held by leisure resorts located near the sea or other water bodies. Indian tourists tend to consider kayaking a one-time activity, rather than a sport to be pursued.


title: Sport in India

text: Enthusiasts of whitewater kayaking are concentrated in the north towards the Himalayas, with some in the south in Bangalore in Karnataka. Most of these enthusiasts are or were whitewater raft guides who took to the sport of whitewater kayaking. Some of the prominent whitewater kayakers include Abhinav Kala, Shalabh Gahlaut, and John Pollard. Many of them have notched first descents (similar to climbing ascents) on rivers in India and Nepal.


title: Sport in India

text: "Bangalore Kayakers" or "Southern River Runners" are India's first amateur group of white water kayakers. Based out of Bangalore, they explore rivers around Western Ghats. The lure for most of these participants is adventure. Whitewater kayaking in India allows for exploration of places where, literally, no human has been before.


title: Sport in India

text: Gear availability is a problem that plagues kayakers. While the global designs for whitewater boats and paddles change annually, Indian kayakers have to pay high fees if they want to import any kind of gear, or they have to buy used gear in Nepal. More often than not, one will see Indian kayaking guides riding down the river in a Perception Amp, Piroutte or Dancer designs, while the kayakers from abroad ride the river in their new design, planing hull, centred-volume kayaks from Riot, Pyranha, or Wave Sport.


title: Sport in India

text: India's history in rowing dates back to the British era. The first club, the Calcutta Rowing Club was founded in 1858. The Rowing Federation of India administers the sport in the country. India's first ever Asian Games gold medal was won by Bajrang Lal Takhar in 2010 but the country has never won an Olympic medal in the sport.


title: Sport in India

text: Sailing as a sport in India can be traced back to the first recorded race being sailed on 6 February 1830 in the western city of Bombay. Till the time the British left India in 1947, there were five active sailing clubs located at Bombay, Madras, Bangalore, Barrackpore and Nainital. Today, there are clubs located in Kerala, Pune, Goa, Hyderabad, and Bhopal. The Yachting Association of India is the governing body for sailing, windsurfing and motorboating in India. The Yachting Association of India was formally constituted on 15 May 1960.


title: Sport in India

text: The history of cycling in India dates back to 1938, and the Cycling Federation of India governs the sport. Though cycling is unknown as a professional sport in India, it is popular as a common recreational sport and a way to keep fit. Children's and younger people do cycling as recreational activity and as play. Some adults use bicycles to travel. Presently cycling is not considered as a commercial professional sport in the nation.


title: Sport in India

text: Mountain biking is becoming a popular sport in India. For the last six years, Mtb himachal, a hardcore endurance event, has been organised regularly by Himalayan Adventure Sports & Tourism Promotion Association (HASTPA), a non-governmental organisation (NGO). A number of national and international riders participate, including Indian Army, Indian Air Force, Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), and a number of young and energetic mountain biking individual riders from cities including Pune, Bangalore, Delhi and Chandigarh. Last year, the government of Sikkim (Department of Tourism) introduced its own mountain biking race, with Southeast Asia's biggest prize money. The second edition saw 48 professional participants from around the globe.


title: Sport in India

text: The Tour of Nilgiris is a major non-competitive and non-commercial touring event in South Asia that covers 1,000 kilometres in under 10 days. The Tour of Nilgiris (TfN), India's first Day Touring Cycle Ride, was born in December 2008 with the twin objectives of promoting bicycling as an activity and spreading awareness about the bio-diversity, flora and fauna of the Nilgiris.


title: Sport in India

text: It soon grew into something a lot more, with an eclectic riding community in 2008 wanting to participate. The community soon assembled, made plans, chose a route and realised they would need a framework to support such a large group of people. So they recruited sponsors to mitigate costs as well as popularise the Tour and the cause of popularising cycling as a viable and sustainable means of travel. Ever since its first edition, the TfN has stayed true to the Community of Cyclists in India by being a Tour for the Community, Of the Community and By the Community. It has grown in size, stature and visibility. From 40 riders in the first edition, it has grown to 100 cyclists in 2013.