Indian sport has always been the frontier of the Freak. Every decade or so a lone ranger turns up, performing feats previously not dreamed of. So when the one-offs like P.T. Usha or Prakash Padukone, Milkha Singh or Viswanathan Anand, or the children of freak families like the Amritrajs, Krishnans and Paeses come along, Indians jump to their feet and let their cheering drown everything but the sound of welcome appreciation. India's sporting structure is not built to produce champions. It is built to place hurdles like maladjusted officials and diversions like public-sector jobs in front of the athletes.

But today in our young, something is stirring. Collectively, culturally. In 2003 Indian sport, perhaps more than any other activity, can claim that this has been a golden year. Not for that unwieldy, lumpy, moth-ridden, corrupt, gravy train conglomerate of government and federation we call Indian sport. But Indian sport as defined by the individual athlete who dared to be different. It was the year when not one but many Freaks decided it was high time they flew. This was the year of the path-finder, the dreamer, the risk-taker.

It was a golden year for Indian sport-in achievement, in aspiration, in attitude.

For achievement, look only to long jumper Anju Bobby George, who did not let the scramble for government aid, visa clearances, illness and the comfort zone of the Commonwealth and Asian Games medals stop her from understanding what world standards meant. Truly global, that meant Paris and the World Championships. On her way to becoming India's first World Athletics Championships medallist, George fouled some jumps, not because she was hesitant but simply because she was going for broke. She shot for the moon and closed her fist around a star.

For aspiration, look at a growing smattering of triers. Arjun Atwal could have stayed just another rich kid from Kolkata but he wanted to be a kid from Kolkata who could take a crack at Tiger Woods and Co. He has hammered the doors down on the richest and toughest sporting circuit in the world and will finally play on the US Professional Golf Association (PGA) tour. Squash player Ritwik Bhattacharya-the first Indian to win a pro title ever-threw open the door for others saying, "I couldn't accept that the highest an Indian had ever got in pro squash was No. 72." No wonder Pankaj Advani cannot be satisfied being World Amateur Snooker Champion. It is the pros he wants.

For attitude, look only at the Indian cricket team in Australia. They were outweighed by history, convention, judgement but they refused to be outpointed in the field. Everything the Australians threw at them came back with double the intensity, triple the intent. They may win the Test series, they may not. But they have shown desire and fight. It is all a country can ask. The numbers keep growing. India has too many of these pioneers to consider them freaks of nature any more.

The Giant Leap

This is the year I began to believe. That an ordinary Indian girl could dream a big dream and find a way to make it come true. In 2002 I won medals at the Commonwealth and Asian Games, but in 2003 I made the leap in my mind about the kind of jumper I wanted to be. The past 12 months have been great teachers and we-my coach-husband, husband-coach Bobby and I-tried to be good students. Not everything went according to plan, but we did not lose sight of the big picture and Bobby is always saying we have had a good year in achievement rather than performance. It is a judgement that has kept us honest all year.

I competed against the top long jumpers in the world on a regular basis in 2003 and far from being the giants in my imagination, I see them as just another group of opponents. Until this summer I had not participated in many international competitions and had no idea what the others were all about. At first sight, they all have aggressive and positive body language. It is probably part of their training. Jumping against them made me focus on their distances and isolate showmanship from substance.

In March I was disappointed as I was not at my physical best in the season's opening big meet-the World Indoor Championships in Athletics in Birmingham. We had aimed for a medal there but a bout of dust allergy and high fever had sent me to hospital days before leaving for the UK. Moving to the US for 10 weeks to work with the legendary jumper Mike Powell at the California State University came next. It took a while to adjust but being there was good for both Bobby and me. Bobby could sharpen his training methods in consultation with Powell and I learnt some different running drills. The long jump is not merely about the jump but also about how you approach it in your run towards the pit. The drills were fine-tuning rather than major adjustment, but the timing could not have been better.

Moving to Europe from the US and competing on the athletics circuit there helped me gain momentum and confidence in time for the World Championships in Paris. A day before my event, I read an opinion poll on an Indian website which asked if I could win a medal. Out of about 700 people, 550 said I could. It was hugely encouraging when I jumped the next day and I am glad I did not let them down. After winning India's first medal at the World's, the rest of the year has been a whirl, with the return home and the Afro-Asian Games. Now it is back to work in the run-up to the new season. 2003 was good but we know what we have worked for all our life-an Olympic medal-is yet to be.

HISTORIC HIGH: George	TOP OF THE GAME: Hockey team

It has been Indian sport's second-class citizen but this year another bunch of men in blue were cool too. The Indian hockey team won four tournaments in 2003, playing a skilful and smart game. Youthful and fearless, the team scored dazzling field goals and regular victories over old enemy Pakistan in 2003. But the 2004 Olympics will be their clincher.

MAIDEN OVER: Bedi

THE HUDDLE: Team India's best gesture

Tamasha Dekko

It is impossible to suppose that cricket will ever be the same again after the excesses of 2003. If 2002 was the year of the famous Sourav Ganguly shirt-strip on the Lord's balcony, which determined that Indian cricketers were to be wimps no more (in gesture, we mean, not physique), 2003 became the year that cricket in television would never be the same. This was the year of the World Cup and to viewers at home, it was the year of the notorious noodle strap. If the one-day game is called pyjama cricket, the World Cup was tamasha cricket, loaded with girls and gimmickry. Ask any man-man, mind-on the street to name a panelist from the telecast and Mandira Bedi would be top of the mind. Backed by a battalion of babes, who asked the Australian team to name their favourite flavour of ice cream, and the ice-cool tarot reader Ma Prem Usha, Bedi went from being small-time tv star to a modern-day cult er... figure. Like her wardrobe, the Indian team went through several plunges of form before stabilising and producing a stirring run all the way to the final with everyone, from the anonymous Ashish Nehra to the revered Rahul Dravid, chipping in. But Sachin Tendulkar remained the big Daddy, smashing all contenders for the No. 1 spot out of sight until That Final. Bedi scored on sex appeal, but if you wanted to stir not the hormones but the heart you needed to look no further than the Great Indian Huddle. A photogenic gesture of team bonding, it exemplified Ganguly's New India. But what did they say inside it, though? Psst... yaar, anyone know what Mandira's wearing today?

STICK TOGETHER: The boys after the ASEAN win

East Is Best In Football

Hold on to your hilsas-East Bengal netted a very big fish in July. One of the pillars of Kolkata football, EB became the first Indian club to win a club title on foreign soil, winning the ASEAN Cup in Jakarta beating Thai giants BEC Tero Sasana 3-1.The Thais are Asian Club Championship finalists but the boys from Bengal didn't show them too much respect. Baichung Bhutia played pivot and piston and the maverick ways of coach Subhash Bhowmick went mainstream.

STRETCH ZONE: Mirza	SWINGING FOR THE STARS: Atwal

Three Cheers For India In World Sport

Leaps and jumps in some sports cannot be measured by conventional standards but three Indians took decisive steps in 2003. Golfer Arjun Atwal joined Anju Bobby George as the athlete who crossed one of the biggest professional gulfs this year.

Atwal became the first player from the subcontinent to qualify for the US PGA tour, the most prestigious circuit in world golf, arguably the toughest one to break into in professional sport. To qualify for the PGA tour, Atwal, who became the first millionaire from the Asian PGA tour where his journey actually began, had to play 10 rounds of golf. The competition for the top 30 spots at the US Qualifying "school" (qualifying competition) gets tighter and tighter as thousands are squeezed out by the pressure of competing for their livelihoods.

The 30-year-old Kolkatan who may have had everything at home but always wanted more finished the final round tied at 7th and now qualifies to rub shoulders with Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia. Don't mock him when he says he wants to win a golf "major"-those who laughed calling him a poor little rich boy when he turned pro are eating their hats as we speak.

Hot on the heels comes the quiet, elf-like Pankaj Advani from Bangalore who plays a game of silence and solitude. The 18-year-old college student won the world amateur snooker title in China, the second Indian after O.B. Agarwal who won it in 1984. But what has marked Advani apart is his desire to turn pro in the hothouse world of international snooker. He held the national junior snooker and billiards titles in 2001 and 2002 and won the senior snooker nationals in 2002. But the win in China marked a clean break for Advani from the massed ranks of his peers.

Much of how far tennis star Sania Mirza can go will depend on how much ambition she can find in herself. Mirza became the first Indian girl to win a junior Grand Slam title, winning the Wimbledon girls doubles with Alisa Kleybanova. Hyderabad-based Mirza, 17, has had a title-filled junior career, but her true test will come when she graduates to the senior rank, looking to become the first Indian woman to break into the top 100 in the world. This was the year she made a statement in the doubles. The time to translate it into the singles is now here.

IN THE DOCK: Kale

Picking On The Wrong Men

When national selectors Kiran More and Pranab Roy blew the whistle on the largely unknown Abhijit Kale, for allegedly trying to bribe them for a spot on the Indian cricket team, the BCCI's selectorial can of worms was busted open. Did Kale think cricket selectors could be bought because he heard that they had been in the past?

GOOD BYE TO GOODWILL: Tendulkar

Tendulkar's roadblock

The man with the composure and control of a Formula 1 racing driver took one wrong turn and paid for it with a truckload of bad publicity. It is difficult to keep the eyes on the straight and narrow when a post-box red Ferrari Modena 360 F1 lies in wait. Whoever in his camp had the brainwave that Sachin Tendulkar apply for a customs duty waiver of Rs 13 lakh needs to be sent back to pr kindergarten. The worthy responsible for granting the duty waiver needs to have the sum deducted from his salary-in EMIS.

ON THE WRONG TRACK: Sports Minister Vikram Verma (right)

Gaffe After Gaffe

Shall we count the ways? The high-powered Arjuna Awards Committee first picked 21 awardees instead of 16. Failure to break the deadlock led to 23 Arjunas being given and the award process getting diluted. The coup de grace came with the Government promising $100,000 (Rs 46 lakh) each to 71 nations as "training" fees to win the bid for the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

IN HER LINE OF FIRE: Ace shooter Bhagwat

Bhagwat Shoots Her Mouth Off

Anjali Vedpathak-Bhagwat has the sharpest eyes, coolest nerves and most lethal aim in Indian sport. But India's most successful shooter on the world stage allowed her mouth to run away with itself when an expected award did not go her way. The premature leak saying that the country's No. 1 sports award-the Khel Ratna-would be given to her, led to an outburst a few days later when it was announced that middle-distance runner K.M. Beenamol had been named instead. Bhagwat, "provoked" by the media, lashed out at the world at large and the unsuspecting athlete. The shooter said there were no guarantees about winning even next year because "shaayad koi aur Beenamol paida ho jaaye (who knows, some other Beenamol will be there)". The Government buckled and two Khel Ratnas were awarded to the two ladies.

WON OVER: Evaluation committee in Delhi

Our Common Wealth, Their Pricey Games

The Commonwealth Games are an anachronism in world sport-they are not a competition for sportsmen of the globe (the Olympic Games), a continent (Asian), a geographical region (Pan-Pacific), a vocation (university) or even the variously challenged (Special Olympics), but between the former subjects of the British Empire. In other words, A Colonial Hangover Games. The mandarins of the IOA and the Government did not think so, bending over backwards to impress the Evaluation Committee when they came to check Delhi's credentials in its bid for the 2010 Games. Stadia were cleaned, streets swept, promises made, freebies planned. Delhi won-and the Indian taxpayer now faces a $422 million bill.

SCORING IN INJURY TIME: Singh

Who's Going To Drive Jugraj Home Tonight?

What possessed the country's deadliest drag flicker to hitch a ride with a runaway car? Jugraj Singh, whose bravado at defending penalty corners and unleashing deadly drag flicks in the Champions Trophy, had riveted the nation. Only Singh had the brass to rush out at his Pakistani counterpart Sohail Abbas and risk getting hit on the leg. Which he did, but kept going. The fist-pumping, rakish, bandana-wearing hockey player became a household name with his hi-jinks in Holland. But disaster was lurking, not on the field but at home, behind the wheel. A road accident sent him to hospital and kept him out of action during a busy winter. A half-heroic, half-tragic TV figure, he egged the side on from his sickbed. They returned with the Asia Cup, put a medal around his neck and saw tears-of joy, but maybe also of opportunity squandered.

JOKE IS ON YOU: Agarkar

The Bombay Duck Quacks No More

Ajit Agarkar lived with cruel nicknames, all born out of his string of seven straight ducks against Australia. So he was 007 and Bombay Duck. But guess who had the last, loudest quack? A six-wicket haul in Adelaide set up a rare Test win in Australia but his big gesture came earlier-after scoring his first run in Brisbane, he raised his bat and soaked in the applause.