WOW INDIA, WOE INDIA

2006 was a bittersweet year for the country in the sporting arena, with success and failure coming in equal measure. While shooting and golf provided much to cheer about, cricket and tennis brought more agony than ecstasy. Things went from bad to worse in hockey, giving rise to unprecedented anger

They covered themselves in glory with their wonderful exploits. While two of them — Leander Paes and MC Mary Kom — consolidated their phenomenal reputation, two others (Jeev Milkha Singh and Jaspal Rana) made a grand comeback to silence their critics. The fifth (Saina Nehwal) made a dream start to her international career. Importantly, none of them was a cricketer.

Jeev Milkha Singh: It was a Green Revolution of another kind as Jeev returned from seven years in the wilderness to reap a rich harvest, forcing a cricket-obsessed nation and a certain Tiger Woods to sit up and take notice.

Indian golf never had it so good and 2006 clearly belonged to Jeev, who ended a seven-year title drought with the Volvo China Open and demonstrated insatiable hunger throughout the year.

A wrist injury, flagging morale and diminishing confidence had compounded Jeev’s problems. The Volvo China Master applied balm on his wounds and it turned out to be just the appetiser for Jeev.

For those who thought the China victory was a fluke, Jeev came up with a stunner in the Volvo Masters in Spain, silencing top guns like Sergio Garcia, Padraig Harrington and Luke Donald to lift the trophy.

Back-to-back triumphs on the Japan Tour — at the Casio World Open and the Golf Nippon Series JT Cup — made it a dream year, which also saw Jeev scooping up three main honours at the Asian Tour’s UBS Awards Gala.

Jeev swept the award ceremony by winning the Players’ Player of the Year, inaugural UBS Special Achievement Award and the UBS Order of Merit title.

Jeev ended the year on a career-highest 37th ranking, which guarantees him starts in all four Majors next year.

Jaspal Rana: The ace shooter rolled back the years to corner glory at the Doha Asian Games and sum up the year on a golden note for the country, starved of an Asiad shooting gold since Hiroshima in 1994, when as an 18-year-old, Rana had won the first one for India. Rana was the only Indian shooter to win strike an individual gold at Doha as big guns like Samresh Jung, Gagan Narang and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore failed to fire.

Rana, now 30, however, minced no words when he said shooters might not be able to repeat their feats if their problems were not addressed.

He complained about inadequate ammunition, equipment and even the ranges, besides the absence of a "worthy" coach.

The shooter also appeared set for an electoral debut as top BJP leaders honoured him at the party’s key national council meeting in Lucknow. He is tipped to be fielded as the BJP candidate from Uttaranchal, where the Assembly elections are due early next year.

MC Mary Kom: She floated like a butterfly and quite literally stung like a bee to emerge as the biggest star on the Indian boxing horizon this year. Manipur pugilist MC Mary Kom — crowned world champion for the third consecutive time — summed up how women stole the limelight from men in a sport which is considered "show business with blood".

Mary Kom and other Indian women pugilists made their mark before the home crowd at the World Championship in New Delhi, amid growing clamour to include women’s boxing in the 2012 London Olympics.

"My dream is to win an Olympic medal for the country. I hope the IOC includes it for the London games. It’s my biggest ambition," an emotional Mary Kom said after completing a hat-trick of world titles.

The Indian team clinched four gold, one silver and three bronze to end the year as world champions, convincingly beating defending champions Russia.

Saina Nehwal: The year celebrated the birth of a new sporting star in Saina, who burst onto the international badminton scene with feats which no Indian woman shuttler had achieved before.

Sixteen-year-old Saina won a major international title (the Philippines Open), stood runner-up podium at the World Junior Championship, helped the Indian team to a bronze-medal finish in the Melbourne Commonwealth Games and made some big names of the world bite the dust.

In her very first year on the international circuit, the Hyderabad-based teenager was India’s top women badminton player, climbing a staggering 87 rungs in the singles rankings to attain her career-best ranking of world number 27.

The Gopichand protege challenged the superiority of the nimble-footed Chinese, Malaysian and Koreans and showed that will and guts could transcend any barrier.

Her scalps included Malaysia’s Sutheaswari Mudukasan and Pei Xian Julia Wong, Japan’s Imai Sachiyo, world No. 4 Xu Huaiwen of Germany, and South Korea’s Bae Youn Joo.

Leander Paes: The irrepressible Paes kept India’s flag flying in tennis. He won the US Open men’s doubles title with Martin Damm of the Czech Republic, and clinched two gold medals for the country at the Doha Asiad partnering Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza. His grit saw India getting past Pakistan in a Davis Cup playoff.

In hindsight, however, India lost something bigger, maybe an Olympic gold, with Paes and Bhupathi throwing away remnants of a strained partnership in the Persian Gulf.

Doha was the last hurrah for the pair as India saw two of its prodigal sons ruling the court one last time, leaving followers of the game to rue that the pair could have ended with more trophies than their cupboard could hold but for a friendship gone sour.

There were failures galore in hockey and athletics, while tennis sensation Sania Mirza flattered to deceive time and again. On-field flop shows were "complemented" by off-field controversies.

Hockey shocks

India’s national game turned out to be the national shame in 2006, which witnessed the men’s hockey team hurtling from one humiliating defeat to another before culminating in the historical disgrace at the Asian Games.

For the first time since the sport became a part of the games in Tokyo (1958), the erstwhile invincible Indians suffered a shock defeat to lowly China to miss out on the semifinals and consequently a berth in the Beijing Olympics.

Deeply hurt by the woeful performance of the national team and the "unprofessional" way of functioning of the IHF, some Olympians took to the streets to vent their anguish.

But all this failed to yield any result with the IHF top brass — President KPS Gill and Secretary K Jothikumaran — not bothering to respond to the concerns.

For women, the year had mixed fortunes in store. They started with a bang by winning a silver at the Commonwealth Games and capped it with a bronze medal at the Asian Games. The only major blot for the women was their lacklustre performance at the World Cup in Madrid.

As in case of the men, an identical fate awaited the eves who also defeated South Africa 1-0 to finish 11th in the 12-nation tournament.

No Sania mania

Sania Mirza was consistently inconsistent as her form yo-yoed throughout the year. In her second full season on the WTA Tour, the Hyderabadi ace found life difficult and sporadic good shows here and there hardly made her a formidable player on the circuit.

To make it worse, her game fell apart even against unheralded players. It showed in her rankings, too, as Sania slid from a career-high 31st to 66th at the end of the year.

Beaten in the semifinals of the Sunfeast Open in Kolkata by eventual champion Martina Hingis, Sania, however, won the doubles title at the WTA Tier III event.

The saving grace were her upset win over Hingis in Seoul, the Asian Hopman Cup triumph and the gold in mixed doubles at the Asiad.

Off track

Indian athletics made headlines for all the wrong reasons with the sport’s governing body in the country having to answer uncomfortable questions on more than one occasion.

The dope scandal involving discus thrower Neelam Jaswant Singh was carried forward from last year with a similar reported offence by Seema Antil being hushed up by the Athletics Federation of India.

The gender controversy over runner Santhi Soundarajan showed the federation in poor light once again.

Results on the field were not too encouraging either. The only gold at a major event came courtesy the 4x400m women’s relay at the Asian Games.

Otherwise, the haul of one gold, four silver and four bronze medals was a big drop from Busan in 2002, when Indian athletes came home with seven gold medals. — Agencies