Sports Facts

Jean Genevieve Garnerin was the first female parachutists, jumping from a hot air balloon in 1799.

More than 100 million people hold hunting licenses.

Boxing became a legal sport in 1901.

Football (soccer) is the most attended or watched sport in the world.

The most popular sport as a topic for a film is boxing.

Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone, also set a world water-speed record of over seventy miles an hour at the age of seventy two.

Parimarjan Negi is the youngest Grandmaster (GM) in India. Born on 9 February 1993, Parimarjan Negi became GM at the age of 13 years and 142 days on July 1, 2006. He is second youngest GM in the history of the game and the youngest of all the GMs currently in the game.

Parimarjan Negi also holds the record for being the world's youngest International Master (IM). He became IM at the age of 12 years, 10 months and 19 days. He is also the youngest to hold four IM norms. He was 10 years and 10 months at the time.

Parimarjan Negi is the youngest Indian to hold a GM norm in the Hastings International Chess Congress in 2006 at the age of 12 years and 330 days. He is also the youngest Indian to beat a Grandmaster when he scored over Switzerland's Ivan Nemet in the Biel Masters in 2004 at the age of 11 years five months.

Viswanathan Anand is India's first Grandmaster. He became Grandmaster (GM) in 1988 at the age of eighteen. Viswanathan Anand was born on December 11, 1969. He won the National Sub-Junior Chess Championship with a score of 9/9 in 1983 at the age of fourteen. Anand became the youngest Indian to win the International Master Title at the age of fifteen, in 1984. He won National Championship at the age of sixteen. In 1987, Anand became the first Indian to win the World Junior Chess Championship. Anand won the FIDE World Chess Championship in 2000 after defeating Alexei Shirov 3.5 - 0.5 in the finals at Teheran, and became the first Indian to do so. He is one of only four players in history to break the 2800 mark on the FIDE rating list.

Viswanathan Anand has won many awards and honours. He won Arjuna Award in 1985, Padma Shri in 1987, Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award in 1991, and Padma Bhushan in the year 2000.