The nature of the beast that sport is, always means that there are crushing lows to deal with sometimes, troughs to fight through, but through the first decade of ESPN India, there has been ample evidence that through all that, the highest of highs do await. India's athletes have achieved some big things on the world stage in the last decade, while, in some cases, also being champions of a different, perhaps more important game at home.
Here, we take a look back at ten such moments -- one for each year of this edition's existence -- that can never be forgotten:
2016 - Sakshi's comeback to clinch the Olympic bronze
The 2016 Rio Olympics was not going well for India. Sakshi Malik was also supposed to be out. She won her first two bouts in the 58kg category but then lost to Valeria Koblova. But wrestling's repechage system meant Sakshi had a shot at the bronze after Koblova made it to the final. She won her first round repechage match and was facing Aisuluu Tynybekova of Kyrgyzstan for the bronze.
Sakshi was off to a bad start as she was trailing 0-5 at the halfway mark. With just two minutes remaining, Sakhi showed some outstanding defence and attack to baffle her opponent, picking up eight points, three in the five seconds, to complete one of the most stellar comeback wins in Indian sporting history and clinch the bronze.
2017 - Mirabai Chanu, world champion
An 85 kg snatch, a 109 kg clean and jerk, a new national record of 194kgs combined... and Mirabai Chanu was World Champion. She had gone into the tournament on the back of a disastrous performance Olympic Games, messing up her lifts and missing a sure-shot medal, but her showing at Anaheim showed off her immense mental training.
Only the second Indian to win a worlds gold (22 years on from Karnam Malleswari), Mirabai's lift also told the world that Indian weightlifting couldn't be discounted at the biggest stages.
2018 - Bajrang Punia becomes world no.1
It may seem odd now, but until 2018, Bajrang Punia had always been in the shadows when it came to wrestling. The achievements of Sushil Kumar and his mentor, Yogeshwar Dutt had always come before and edged Bajrang to the 'relative' sidelines. Olympic medals, World Championship medals and more came for his predecessors... except for world no.1 status - that had proved a bridge too far.
Not so for Bajrang in 2018. He'd began the season with gold in the Commonwealth Games, and gold in the Asian Games as well. The World Championships later that year became the scene of his crowning glory. Well, almost. Coming up against a 19-year-old Takuto Otoguro (who would go on to become Olympic champion in Tokyo), Bajrang's famed capacity for a comeback saw him go from 0-5 to 6-7 but his weakness to leave his leg open saw him eventually lose out. Nonetheless, the silver medal was historic - the first Indian to win multiple Worlds medals and the first Indian to become world no.1. No shadows anymore.
Bajrang Punia earns long-due coronation with gladiatorial display
2019 - At last, PV Sindhu becomes world champion
Sindhu, at only 24 years, already had two bronze and two silver medals at the World Championship when she played the 2019 final against Nozomi Okuhara. She had lost the finals in the last two years; to Okuhara in a 110-minute epic and then to Carolina Marin in a repeat of the 2016 Olympic final.
Her own history was against her; but that did not stop her from creating more history - the first Indian badminton player to become world champion. This final was only 38 minutes, as an impeccable Sindhu played one of the best matches of her career to go where no Indian has gone before or since.
2020 - Online Chess Olympiad stamps arrival of India's next gen
If this particular moment pales in comparison to the rest of the moments on this list, that's because 2020 was a miserable year for sport, right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.
India shared the title with Russia, after a global server outage made it impossible for some Indian players to log in for their final against Russia. However, despite it being a shared title, it was a significant title, in the sense that it brought attention to the rising young generation for the first time.
R Praggnanandhaa, Nihal Sarin, Divya Deshmukh were all part of the team, that also had stalwarts like Viswanathan Anand, Koneru Humpy, and Dronavalli Harika.
It was just a sign of things to come in Indian chess.
2021 - A javelin was hurled 87.58m in Tokyo
A moment like no other in Indian sport, really. An Olympic medal for an Indian? Fairly rare? Olympic gold for an Indian in an individual event? Rarer still. Olympic gold in Athletics? Unprecedented.
It's hard to find words that haven't already been said about the night of Neeraj Chopra's life in Tokyo in 2021, but it is a moment that will keep appearing on such lists, precisely for how unprecedented it was.
The Indian national anthem playing at the Olympic Stadium... Never had it happened outside of a shooting range for an individual athlete in independent India. Until August 7, 2021. National Javelin Day now, thanks to perhaps the greatest athlete in Indian history.
Ice-cold Neeraj Chopra turns Olympic legend with India's first athletics gold
2022 - History is made at the Thomas Cup
Until then, in the 73 years of Thomas Cup history, India had never won a medal. And then in 2022 it came, and it was gold. Their collective strength, and how they leveraged it, was astonishing to watch -- Lakshya Sen opening, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty following them up, Kidambi Srikanth in the second singles, MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila as the second doubles and HS Prannoy closing it out whenever it went the distance.
India took the scenic route -- winning it in five matches in both the quarters vs Malaysia and the semifinals vs Denmark before swatting aside 14-time champions Indonesia 3-0 in the final. It was a triumph that somehow simultaneously defied belief and also underlined the fact that Indian badminton now truly belonged amongst the world's elite.
2023 - The wrestlers' protests
Not many would have thought that a nondescript protest on the pavements of Jantar Mantar on a cold January morning in 2023 would have nationwide ramifications - and that the fallout is still being felt today. Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia made serious allegations of sexual abuse against then Wrestling Federation of India President, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, and what followed was a firestorm of protests, political machinations, international media coverage and court cases.
It saw perhaps one of the most iconic and simultaneously most shameful images in Indian sport - Vinesh and Sangeeta Phogat, lying on the road clutching an Indian flag, with the police detaining them forcefully. The eventual fallout saw Singh charged, Sakshi Malik retire and Bajrang bow out of the spotlight, while Vinesh continues to fight on the mat. Singh's close associate, Sanjay Singh became WFI President, and while the wrestler protests took on the establishment, in many ways, things remained the same.
2023: the year wrestling changed everything, and yet things remained the same
2024 - Gukesh becomes the chess world's youngest king
The new generation chess boom in India ultimately culminated in a historic moment when D Gukesh, at just 18, became the World Champion in 2024. Playing defending champion Ding Liren of China in Singapore, Gukesh went all the way till Game 14 when a late blunder from his opponent handed the advantage to the Indian and he became the second Indian after Viswanathan Anand to become world champion in classical chess.
While the Gukesh's talent was obvious, what stood out was his mental fortitude at that age. First, he won the Candidates in a stacked field and then played 14 high pressure games while barely making any mistakes. A deserving world champion who will now look to maintain the status quo this year against Javokhir Sindarov.
2025 - Sheetal Devi becomes first armless archer world champion
Perhaps the only thing more inspiring than armless archer Sheetal Devi's journey to the top of the sport, is how she achieved improbable greatness across sport in 2025.
At only 18 years of age, after one of her most challenging seasons where she had to literally relearn her basics because of a rule change, she became the first armless para world champion. She then came home and aced the the regularly abled selection trials to qualify for India's 'able-bodied' junior archery team. Both within the span of a few weeks.
Perfection personified: At 18, Sheetal Devi fulfils her dream of becoming world champion