Image: Punit Paranjpe/Afp Via Getty ImagesBy winning a bronze in the men’s freestyle 57 kg event at the Paris Olympics, the wrestler became India’s youngest medal winner at the Games. Aged 21 years and 24 days when he won the medal, the wrestler bettered shuttler PV Sindhu’s record, who won a silver at the 2016 Olympics when she was 21 years, one month and 14 days old.
The 25-year-old cricketer has had a meteoric rise, stamping his authority in the white-ball format. With 17 wickets, he became the joint-highest wicket-taker in India’s victorious T20 World Cup campaign. He recently went past Jasprit Bumrah to become the second-highest T20I wicket-taker for India—at 95 wickets in 60 matches, Singh is now one behind Yuzvendra Chahal who has played 20 more games.
The 21-year-old Grandmaster had a remarkable year, starting with a win at Menorca Open A in April. At the Chess Olympiad, he was the only player in the Open section to achieve six straight wins, securing individual and team gold medals. In December, he became the second Indian, after Viswanathan Anand, to reach an ELO rating of 2800.
Avani Lekhara
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From a road accident in 2012 that left her wheelchair-bound, Lekhara is now the only Indian woman across Olympics and Paralympics to have two gold medals to her name. At the 2024 Paris Games, the 23-year-old para-shooter defended her 10m air rifle medal with a score of 249.7 in the final, breaking her own Paralympic record and setting a new one in the process.
Dharambir Nain
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Riding high on the golden success at the World Para Athletics Championships in May, Nain was a front-runner to win the top spot at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Competing in the men’s club throw F51 event, he not only bagged the gold but also shattered the Asian record by hurling the club to a distance of 34.92 m.
D Gukesh
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At 18, he became the youngest ever chess world champion and only the second Indian to win the title after V Anand. The Chennai teen was also the youngest ever winner of the Candidates tournament, the qualification pathway for the world championship bout. In September, he guided India to a team gold medal in the Chess Olympiad, by winning nine out of 10 games, and won an individual gold in Board 1.
Divya Deshmukh
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At the 45th Chess Olympiad in Budapest, Divya Deshmukh was the saviour in crunch time. The 18-year-old champ played every 11 rounds, remaining unbeaten—winning eight games and drawing three. The youngest member of the women’s team was crucial in bringing the historic team gold and individual gold for herself as well. As of December 2024, she is ranked second in India.
Harmanpreet Singh
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Singh, one of the best drag-flickers in the world, emerged as the highest goal-scorer of the Paris Olympic Games. The Indian hockey skipper scored 10 goals in eight matches, three more than the next best, and pocketed the second Olympic medal of his career. Singh has also fetched the highest value, of ₹78 crore, in the franchise-based Hockey India League, which re-launched in a new avatar.
Also read: From Payal Kapadia to Vicky Kaushal: 2024-25 Showstoppers, filmmakers and film edition
Harvinder Singh
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In September, the 33-year-old para-archer won the gold medal in the men’s individual recurve open event at the Paris Paralympics 2024. Harvinder’s win brought the country its first-ever archery gold at either game. The lad from Kaithal, Haryana, upgraded the medal colour from bronze at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.
Also read: Why Jasprit Bumrah is currently world’s best bowler across formats
Jasprit Bumrah
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The Player of the Series in India’s T20 World Cup victory, among the top five wicket-takers in the current Test Championship cycle as well as the 2023 ODI World Cup—Bumrah’s performance across formats leaves no doubt about his stature as an all-time great. His ability to pick up wickets at will and also stymie the run flow makes him the batter’s ultimate nemesis.
Manika Batra
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Manika Batra has become the face of Indian women’s table tennis after becoming the first Indian to advance to the round of 16 in the Olympic Games singles competition in Paris. In what is clearly her best year on the circuit so far, she also made the quarters of the WTT Champions in Montpellier in October. She aims to break into the world’s top 15 in 2025.
Manu Bhaker
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Bhaker bounced back from a disappointing 2020 Olympics to become the first Indian athlete to win multiple medals from a single edition of the Games. The shooter capped a fantastic Paris Games, winning two bronze medals—in the 10m women’s air pistol and the 10m mixed air pistol categories—and came agonisingly close to another, finishing fourth in 25m pistol.
Navdeep Singh
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Navdeep Singh hails from Panipat, Haryana, the same place as Neeraj Chopra, his inspiration. The 24-year-old para-athlete gave his personal best with a 47.5-metre throw in javelin and won the Indian contingent a gold medal at the 2024 Paris Paralympics in September. Earlier in the year, at the 2024 World Para Athletics Championships in Kobe, Japan, he secured a bronze for India.
Nitesh Kumar
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The para-shuttler made history at the Paralympics by winning the gold in the men’s singles SL3 category—for athletes with severe lower limb disabilities. The 30-year-old IIT graduate from Haryana is ranked World No. 1. He had previously won three medals at the World Championships and four in the Asian Para Games.
Neeraj Chopra
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Battling fears of aggravating an injury, Chopra became India’s highest-placed medallist in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, winning a silver in javelin with a throw of 89.45m. He finished second in the final of the prestigious Diamond League series too, narrowly missing the top spot by 0.01m, throwing with another fracture in his hand. Despite an injury-laden year, he managed to stay among the top two in all the international tournaments he took part in.
PR Sreejesh
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Three-time Olympian and 2x medallist, Sreejesh was the indefatigable ‘wall’ guarding the goalpost for Indian hockey, and has been one of the key contributors to India’s successive medal-winning feats in the Olympic Games. Having retired after the Paris Games, the 36-year-old is now nursing the next generation, coaching the India men’s junior side.
Praveen Kumar
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Praveen Kumar became the youngest para-athlete to win a Tokyo 2020 Paralympic medal by securing silver in the men’s high jump T64 category. At Paris 2024, he upgraded that medal to gold with the winning jump of 2.08 metres. The 21-year-old registered a dominant victory as he set the new Asian record and improved his personal best from 2.07 metres.
Rohit Sharma
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The skipper led India to a sensational T20 World Cup win—the second title in the format after MS Dhoni’s team won the inaugural edition in 2007. The 37-year-old was also India’s highest run scorer in the tournament, and the second overall, with 257 runs in eight matches. Towards the end of the year, though, his captaincy and batting form in Tests came under scrutiny, after the whitewash against New Zealand at home.
Sarabjot Singh
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On July 30, Indians held their breaths, and Sarabjot Singh held his nerves at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre in Paris. On the day, the 23-year-old teamed up with Manu Bhaker and earned India its second medal in a remarkable turnaround. The bronze medal in the 10m air pistol mixed team event became the Ambala-based athlete’s redemption story after he faced disappointment at the final in the men’s 10m pistol event.
Sheetal Devi
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At 17, she won a bronze in the mixed compound archery team event alongside Rakesh Kumar at the Paralympics. The win meant that the teenager from Jammu & Kashmir became India’s youngest Paralympic medallist and only the second armless archer to win a Paralympic medal. She had won a silver at the 2023 World Championships, and two golds and a silver at the Asian Para Games.
Smriti Mandhana
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Mandhana is the year’s most prolific woman cricketer overall as well as in T20s, having scored 1655 and 763 runs, respectively. Both are also the most scored in a calendar year by a woman. She became the first woman to score four ODI centuries in a year—with nine in the format now, she has crossed Mithali Raj’s record for the most by an Indian. Mandhana led Royal Challengers Bengaluru to their maiden Women’s Premier League title, and finished the tournament as the second-highest run-scorer.
Sumit Antil
Image: Alex Davidson/Getty Images For International Paralympic Committee
Antil won a gold medal in the javelin men’s F64 category in the Paris Paralympic Games, becoming the first Indian male para-athlete to defend his title. The 26-year-old from Haryana won the title with a throw of 70.59m and, along with his two other throws in the final, bettered the previous Games record, set by himself, three times over.
Swapnil Kusale
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Swapnil Kusale inscribed his name in history by becoming the first Indian shooter to bag a medal in the 50-metre Rifle 3 Position (3P) men’s event at the Paris 2024 Olympics. This was India’s first-ever Olympic shooting medal in the 50m 3P and the third medal in rifle shooting after Abhinav Bindra’s gold in men’s 10m air rifle at Beijing 2008 and Gagan Narang’s bronze in the same event at London 2012.
Vantika Agrawal
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The 21-year-old from Noida was instrumental in the Indian women’s chess team winning its first ever Olympiad gold in Budapest. She also won the individual gold on Board 4 and remained unbeaten in the tournament. She started playing the sport at the age of seven and has now set her sights on becoming a Grandmaster.
Yashasvi Jaiswal
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From selling pani puri in Mumbai to taking on the fastest bowlers at Perth, their haven in Australia, Jaiswal’s life has come full circle. At 22, he is the youngest Indian cricketer to score 1,000 Test runs in a calendar year, achieving the feat during the series against New Zealand at home. Known for his fearless batting, he scored eight 50s and three daddy hundreds in the format, two among them double centuries. Jaiswal ranks among the top 5 in Tests and top 10 in T20Is in ICC’s 2024 rankings.
Methodology
Forbes India Showstoppers, in its third year, is a list of 75 achievers who have outperformed in their respective fields—cinema (theatrical release), OTT, music and sports. The timeline considered is December 1, 2023, to December 1, 2024. Three months ago, a team of journalists and senior editors at Forbes India started putting together a long list of close to 150 names of actors, filmmakers, musicians, singers and sportspersons, through primary and secondary research. They arrived at the final list of 75 in the first week of December after internal deliberations. Since 2024 saw a multitude of younger professionals and artistes making their mark across these categories, especially in cinema and OTT, the List this year gives preference to younger stars over senior, more established celebrities.
For cinema, the factors under consideration were quality of work, appreciation (critical acclaim and popularity), level of challenge and diversity in roles, pipeline of projects, and box office success. In OTT, apart from the challenge and diversity of roles, we also considered popularity and recall value of their respective roles and shows. For sports, the metric was achievements this year, while for music, it was popularity across mainstream genres during the year.
Category coordinators: Kathakali Chanda and Kunal Purandare
Text by kathakali chanda, rucha sharma and kunal purandare