From the victory screams in Monchengladbach to the ignominy of an Olympic ban, last 12 months in Indian sports touched highs and lows with incessant regularity. Maiden triumphs in hockey, shooting and badminton were celebrated with a smile, but concealed under those grins was a threat of competing under the Olympics flag in Rio.
Off-field embarrassment didn't remain confined to the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) office. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) competed earnestly. Spot-fixing and betting in the Indian Premier League (IPL) entered the franchise dug-outs, with team owners and players conniving in equal measure. Some were arrested and then banned, some dragged to court, while some got re-elected to power.
A sport is best played on the field. That's what players are trained to do, and while every Indian athlete tried, some did it to perfection - with women power reigning supreme. Here's how:
CHAK DE GIRLS
Led by the ever-smiling Sushila Chanu, junior Indian women's team created history by winning their first ever medal in World Cup history. The Indians beat England 3-2 via penalty shootout in Monchengladbach, Germany, to win a bronze medal.
PV SINDHU
The shuttler became the first Indian woman to win a singles medal at the World Badminton Championships. Sindhu lost in the semi-finals against Ratchanok Inthan to settle for a bronze. Before that, the Hyderabadi lived up to her top billing by winning her maiden Grand Prix gold title by lifting Malaysia Open trophy in Kuala Lumpur.
HEENA SIDHU
The 24-year-old became the first pistol shooter from India to win a gold medal at the World Cup final. Sidhu, who finished 12th at the 2012 London Olympics, beat the best shooters in the world in the 10m air pistol event in Munich. In fact, it was her first gold medal at the world level.
LEANDER PAES
Doubles tennis legend Leander Paes, 40, became the oldest man to win a Grand Slam title on September 8 when he and Radek Stepanek took the US Open title. It was the pair's second major title and Paes' third in New York, eighth in men's doubles and 14th overall. And Paes capped that feat with a quote that grabbed headlines: "Age is just a number to look and smile at."
LAJJA GAUSWAMI
Gauswami clinched silver medal in the women's 50-metre rifle 3 position event, finally bringing an end India's lean run at the ISSF World Cup.
THE KHEL RATNA
Rejecting discuss-thrower Krishna Poonia's claims for a joint Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna - India's most acclaimed sports award - the Sports Ministry confirmed shooter Ronjan Sodhi as the 2013 awardee. It was the third consecutive year that a shooter was picked for the Khel Ratna, after Gagan Narang (2010-11) and Vijay Kumar (2011-12).
Those (barring the controversy surrounding the Khel Ratna) were perhaps the most heart-warming stories of 2013, but that's not all. India, world champions in cricket's 50-over format, were on a winning spree and stars also emerged from track and field, weightlifting, wrestling and table tennis. Take a look.
Cricket
The most-followed and most-talked-about event was seen unfolding on the cricket field when the iconic Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar brought curtains down on his record-breaking, 23-year career in a teary-eyed farewell at home in Mumbai on November 16.
In other noteworthy effort on the field, a young Indian team - led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni but without senior statesmen like Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan - went on to lift the Champions Trophy by beating England in the final at Birmingham.
The triumph made Dhoni the only skipper in the game's history to have lifted all three ICC trophies - with the World Twenty20 and World Cup being the other two. The young brigade went on to win six consecutive trophies in one-day international cricket before the juggernaut was overturned in South Africa.
Hockey
The historic world cup bronze won by the junior women's team away in Germany remained the most striking sports image of 2013. Led by Sushila Chanu, the women won their first ever world cup medal by beating England in the third-place playoff via penalty strokes.
The next best result was the junior men lifting the Sultan of Johor Cup in Malaysia; however, their early exit from the World Cup at home ended the year on a low.
Gold eluded senior women's team, but with Asia Cup bronze and silver in the Asian Champions Trophy, they ended the year on a progressive note. For senior men, other than an Asia Cup silver, it was a disappointing year with a fifth-place finish at the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup and a similar fate at the Asian Champions Trophy where most of the seniors were rested.
The men's team did manage to qualify for the 2014 World Cup in The Hague, albeit as a lucky reserve from Asia.
Badminton
Besides Sindhu's exploits, the much-talked about Indian Badminton League (IBL) also made its debut in 2013 amid controversy-laden player auctions. After much drama surrounding India's doubles player Jwala Gutta at the auctions, on-court action got underway with the Saina Nehwal-led Hyderabad Hotshots being crowned the champions after they downed Awadhe Warriors 3-1 in the finals.
Athletics
India finished sixth at the Asian Athletics Championships winning two gold, five silver and ten bronze medals. Discus-thrower Vikas Gowda and the women's 4x400m relay quartet of Nirmala, Tintu Luka, Anu Mariam Jose and Poovamma MR won gold for India.
Also, at the Youth Asian Games, India claimed three gold, four silver and seven bronze medals to finish 10th in the medals tally while competing under the Olympics flag after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) banned the IOA.
Football
East Bengal made a historic entry in the semi-finals of the AFC Cup, improving on their previous best quarter-final appearance in 2004. However, they failed to become the first Indian club to enter the final after going down 3-0 to Kuwait Sports Club in the second leg of the semi-final, losing 7-2 on aggregate.
Golf
Gaganjeet Bhullar and Shiv Kapur were the only two Indian names on the list tournament winners in 2013. While Bhullar won his fifth Asian Tour title with victory at the Indonesia Open, Kapur claimed the season-ending Dubai Festival City Challenge Tour Grand Final.
Archery
Deepika Kumari couldn't wear gold but her two silver medals, including one with Jayanta Talukdar, helped India finish fourth in the Archery World Cup (Stage 1) in Shanghai.
Chess
Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand's reign came to an end in 2013 with Norway's Magnus Carlsen beating the Indian in the world championship match at his hometown Chennai. Carlsen claimed the crown by taking his tally to the required 6.5 points out of a possible ten, winning three and drawing seven games.
Weightlifting
The Indian team broke records at the Commonwealth Youth, Junior and Senior Championships, bagging an unprecedented 102 medals at the event, including 53 gold.
Meanwhile at the Asian Youth Championship in May, the Indian team won a whopping 27 medals - a first in the history of Indian weightlifting according to the officials of the Weightlifting Federation of India.
Table Tennis
India made it to six semi-finals of the Commonwealth Table Tennis meet, but still didn't manage to win a single gold and settled for two silver and seven bronze medals at the event in New Delhi.
Wrestling
The Indian men's Greco Roman wrestling team notched up a rich haul of seven gold, five silver and two bronze medals at the Commonwealth Championships held in Johannesburg. The women's team ended runners-up in the event by winning two gold, four silver and five bronze.
Indian and world wrestling fraternity also heaved a sigh of relief on September 8 after the IOC members voted in favour of wrestling to be retained for the 2020 and 2024 Olympics.
Cue Sports
Aditya Mehta made the whole country proud when he became the first Indian to win the World Games title after comfortably defeating his higher-ranked Chinese opponent and tournament favourite, Liang Wenbo, in the summit clash of the quadrennial event in July. Mehta touched another high in his pro career when he reached the final of the Indian open, a major ranking event, only to lose to Chinese prodigy Ding Junhui 0-5.
Meanwhile, reigning world champion Rupesh Shah added another feather to his cap by clinching the 12th Asian Billiards championship with win over compatriot Alok Kumar in April in Indore.
CONTROVERSIES
The year saw a never-before crackdown on the cricket betting mafia with players and officials being arrested, sacked and life-banned. The police first arrested three players of the IPL franchise Rajasthan Royals - S Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan - and later released them on bail only to be banned by the BCCI on charges of spot-fixing; however, court cases against these players are still pending.
The betting racket spread to the franchise owners, with the former Team Principal of the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Gurunath Meiyappan, being arrested by the police along with Bollywood actor Vindoo Dara Singh. Meiyappan, who is also the son-in-law of BCCI president N Srinivasan, is currently out on bail. However, Srinivasan, whose company India Cements owns CSK, refused to step down as BCCI president and in fact got re-elected to office after fierce lobbying.
And if that was not enough, the power tussle within the IOA led to the IOC slapping an Olympic ban on India that, though on the mend, is still in force. The IOC objected to tainted officials standing for elections and asked the Indian federation to amend its constitution to prevent them from contesting. The IOA defied that, which resulted in global embarrassment for India.
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