Sports GK Questions: Trophies, Olympics & Indian Firsts

Spoilers! These are the Starter quiz’s answers. Easy, Medium, Hard and Mixed rounds show their own answers when you finish.

1. The Durand Cup, first held at Shimla in 1888, is associated with which sport?

   • Hockey
   • Football
   • Polo
   • Cricket

   Answer: Football. The Durand Cup is Asia's oldest existing club football tournament, named after Sir Henry Mortimer Durand.

2. The Thomas Cup is the world team championship for

   • women's badminton
   • men's table tennis
   • men's badminton
   • mixed tennis

   Answer: men's badminton. Thomas Cup = men's badminton teams, Uber Cup = women's, Sudirman Cup = mixed. India won the Thomas Cup for the first time in 2022.

3. India won its first Olympic gold medal in hockey at

   • Amsterdam 1928
   • Los Angeles 1932
   • Berlin 1936
   • London 1948

   Answer: Amsterdam 1928. India's hockey team won gold at Amsterdam in 1928 and then in 1932 and 1936; London 1948 was the first gold as an independent nation.

4. Abhinav Bindra won India's first individual Olympic gold medal at Beijing 2008 in

   • 50 m rifle prone
   • 25 m rapid fire pistol
   • trap shooting
   • 10 m air rifle

   Answer: 10 m air rifle. Bindra won the men's 10 m air rifle. Neeraj Chopra later won India's first Olympic gold in athletics (javelin, Tokyo 2020).

5. K.D. Jadhav, independent India's first individual Olympic medallist (bronze, Helsinki 1952), competed in

   • boxing
   • weightlifting
   • wrestling
   • athletics

   Answer: wrestling. Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav won bronze in freestyle bantamweight wrestling. Karnam Malleswari (weightlifting, 2000) was the first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal.

6. In kho-kho, how many players of the chasing team are on the field at a time?

   • 7
   • 9
   • 11
   • 12

   Answer: 9. The chasing side has 9 players on the field: 8 sitting in the central lane and 1 active chaser. Kabaddi has 7 per side on court.

7. In 2021 the IOC added which word to the Olympic motto 'Citius, Altius, Fortius'?

   • Communiter (Together)
   • Pax (Peace)
   • Honestas (Honesty)
   • Unitas (Unity)

   Answer: Communiter (Together). The IOC Session in July 2021 adopted 'Citius, Altius, Fortius – Communiter': Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together.

8. The French Open tennis championship at Roland Garros is played on which surface?

   • Grass
   • Hard court
   • Carpet
   • Clay

   Answer: Clay. Roland Garros is the only Grand Slam on clay. Wimbledon is on grass; the Australian Open and US Open are on hard courts.

9. The International Olympic Committee is headquartered in

   • Geneva
   • Lausanne
   • Paris
   • Athens

   Answer: Lausanne. The IOC, founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin, is based in Lausanne, Switzerland. The first modern Olympics were held in Athens in 1896.

10. Who became the first Indian to swim across the English Channel, in 1958?

    • Mihir Sen
    • Arati Saha
    • Bula Choudhury
    • Khazan Singh

    Answer: Mihir Sen. Mihir Sen crossed in September 1958. A year later, in 1959, Arati Saha became the first Asian woman to swim the Channel.