First in Sports – Indians

1. The first Indian to win an individual medal at the Olympic Games—KD Jadhav
2. The first Indian to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games —Abhinav Bindra
3. The first Indian woman to win an individual medal at the Olympic Games— Karnam Malleswari
4. The first Indian (also the first Asian) to win the Wimbledon junior Singles title —Ramanathan Krishnan (in 1954)
5. The first Indian to win a Grand Slam title (French Open mixed doubles title in 1997) —Mahesh Bhupathi
6. The first Indian to achieve a career Grand Slam in mixed doubles —Mahesh Bhupathi (2006)
7. The first Indian to achieve a career Grand Slam in doubles— Leander Paes (2012)
8. The first Indian to become a world champion in billiards —Wilson Jones
9. India’s first Grandmaster and also the first Indian to win the FIDE World Chess Championship —Vishwanathan Anand
10. The first Indian to win the under 10 World Chess Championship— P. Harikrishna
11. The first Indian to win the All England Badminton Championship —Prakash Padukone
12. The first Indian gymnast to win a medal at the Commonwealth Games Ashish Kumar
13. The first Indian woman to receive the Grandmaster’s title— Koneru Humpy
14. The youngest Indian to win the Grandmaster title— Parimarjan Negi (13 years 3 months and 22 days)
15. The youngest Indian to captain its test cricket team— Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi
16. The first Indian to swim across the English Channel —Mihir Sen (1958)
17. The first Indian woman (also Asian woman) to swim across the English Channel— Aarti Saha (1959)
18. The first woman in the world to swim the seven seas —Bula Chaudhary
19. The first Indian woman to win a gold medal at the Asian Games— Kamaljit Sandhu
20. The first Indian women athlete to win a medal at a world event (Bronze at World Athletics Championship, 2003) —Anju Bobby George
21. The first Indian woman to win a Grand Slam title —Sania Mirza
22. The first Indian to win the World Junior Badminton Championships and also to win a Super Series tournament, (by clinching the Indonesia Open) —Saina Nehwal
23. 1st recipient of Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award— Viswanathan Anand
24. 1st woman recipient of Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award —Karnam Malleswari
25. 1st recipient of Dhyanchand Lifetime Achievement Award —Aparna Ghosh
26. 1st cricket player to be awarded the Arjuna Award— Salim Durrani
27. 1st Indian to win Olympic medals at two consecutive Olympic Games —Sushil Kumar