May 2012 Sports

Defending champion Vishwanathan Anand of India won the FIDE ( Federation Internationale des Echec) World Chess Title on 30 may 2012 for the record fifth time. Anand beat Boris Gelfand of Israel in a rapid-chess tie-breaker. The world title is Anand’s fourth in a row as he had also claimed the title in 2007, 2008, and 2010. The 42-year-old had claimed his maiden world title in 2000 after beating Latvian Alexei Shirov in Tehran. He is also the first Asian to win the FIDE world chess championship.
England Batsman Kevin Pietersen announced his retirement from limited-overs edition of International cricket. He, however, will continue to play test cricket for the country. Pietersen who had made his international debut in 2004 has played a total of 127 one-day internationals and 36 Twenty20 internationals. South Africa-born Pietersen has scored 4184 one-day international runs at an average of 48.14. He is the sixth highest run getter from England.

. The Badminton mens team of China won the Thomas Cup by beating arch-rival South Korea 3-0 at the Wuhan Sports Complex Gymnasium, Huwan, china on 27 may. While the chinese women team won the Uber cup by beating the south korea.

Roger Federar of Switzerland defeated Tomas Berdych of Czech won the Madrid Open title on 13 May 2012. With this win, he retained no.2 position.

Malaysia won the Junior Hockey World Cup 2012 title by defeating Pakistan.

India’s Olympic prospect Deepika Kumari won her first Archary World Cup individual recurve gold medal on 5 May at Antalya, Turkey. She beat Korea’s Lee Sung Jin by six set points to four in the final of the Stage 2 of the championship. Ms. Deepika, who has already qualified for London Olympics, is the current junior world champion and a gold medallist at the Delhi Commonwealth Games. She had also won the Cadet World Title in 2009.

Indian athletes won four gold, one silver and four bronze medals, in the first leg of the Asian Grand Prix in Bangkok on 8 May 2012. MR Poovama won gold in the the women's 400m, Sajeesh Joseph bagged gold in the men's 800m while,the men's 4X400m relay team of Joseph Abraham, Jitin Paul, Shake Mortaza and MP Kunhu bagged gold. The womens relay team of Saraswati Chand, Debashree Majumdar, Ratandeep Kaur and Poovama also won the gold.

Indian women squash team won the gold medal at the 16th Asian Squash Championship in Kuwait on 5 May 2012. The women team created a history by defeating the top seeded Hongkong team in the title clash. Joshna Chinnappa and Dipika Pallikkal of India defeated world number sixteen Joey Chan and world number seven Annie Au respectively.

Seven-time World snooker champion, 43-year old Stephen Hendry of scotland announced his retirement on 1 May 2012 after losing in the quarterfinals at the World Championships. He was snooker's world number one for eight straight years between 1990 and 1998, and again in 2006-2007.