Johan Cruyff
- Johan Cruyff, the legendary Dutch soccer striker and coach, has died on March 24, 2016 at the age of 68 in Barcelona (Spain). As a player he was the embodiment of Dutch ‘total football’, a fluid style of play focused on ball possession and rapid passing, and involving all members of the team in both attack and defence, He emerged as one of the world’s greats in the early 1970s when he helped Ajax Amsterdam win three European Cups, in a row from I 1971-73, and he was named European Footballer of the Year in 1971, 1973 and 1974.
- He joined Barcelona for a then-world record transfer fee of $ 2.0 million, and it was the Catalan club that later, defined his coaching career as he led them to their first La Liga title in nearly 15 years in 1974. He was also a key player in the great Netherlands team that reached the 1974 World Cup final.
Hardeep Singh
- Hardeep Singh booked an Olympic quota place for India in Greco-Roman wrestling, which is not the country’s forte, after, finishing with a silver medal in the 98 kg category on the last day of the Asian Olympic Qualification championship at Astana, Kazakhstan on 1 March 20, 2016.
- This is the first time that an Indian Greco-Roman wrestler has secured an Olympic berth after 2004 Athens Games, when Mausam Khatri had made the cut. Overall, three Indian wrestlers have so far qualified for the Olympics—two (Yogeshwra Dutt and Narsingh Yadav) in men’s freestyle and one in greco-roman.
Maria Sharapova
- Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova, the highest-paid woman in sports, said on March 7, 2016 that she failed a drug test at the Australian Open due to a substance she has been taking for 10 years for health issues.
- This five-time grand slam champion, will be provisionally suspended starting March 12, 2016 from the International Tennis Federation, i.e. She is the seventh athlete in a month to test positive for meldonium, which is used to treat diabetes and low magnesium, and was only banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency as of January 1, 2016.
Gurmeet Singh
- Gurmeet Singh created history on March 20, 2016 by becoming the first Indian athlete to clinch a gold medal in the Asian 20 km Race Walk Championships. Gurmeet clocked 1 hr 20 min and 29 sec. He beat Japan’s Isamu Fujisawa (1 20 49).
- Kazakhstan’s Georgiy Sheiko won the bronze medal in 1:21:52. By winning the Asian title, Gurmeet has made a strong case for himself for selection in the Rio Olympic Games. He finished 7th in his first appearance in 2011, silver in 2012, a bronze each in 2013 and 2014 and 9th in 2015.
- In the women’s 20 km walk race event. National Games champion and Rio Games-bound Sapna finished fourth in a time of 1:35:57. China’s Rui Liang won the gold in 1:28:43 while Kumiko Okada of Japan (1:30:03) and South Korean Jeongeun Lee (1:33:53) took the silver and bronze respectively.
Napoleon Singh
- Hockey India national-level umpire Napoleon Singh has been promoted to the International Outdoor Umpire by the International Hockey Federation (FIH) on March 3, 2016 after seeing his performance in the recently-concluded 12th South Asian Games 2016, held at Guwahati from February 5 to 16, 2016.
- Napoleon was a national level hockey player and completed a diploma in Sports Coaching from the National Institute of Sports, Patiala in 2011. Napoleon started his career as an umpire from Manipur in the third Hockey India Junior Women National Championship 2013 held at Ranchi (Jharkhand).
- His first major breakthrough was his appointment as umpire in the eighth Junior Men Asia Cup, held at Kuantan, Malaysia in 2015. Based oh this performance he was appointed to 12th South Asian Games in 2016. He is presently working as a coach at Kokrajhar (Assam).
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