2025 has been a strange year for Indian sport. It always is in a year when there are no big multi-sport events like the Olympics, Asian Games or Commonwealth Games. But this year, success has been fairly sparse in a large number of sports for Indian athletes.
However, post an Olympic year, you often get new stars, ones who want to make a name for themselves at the beginning of a new Olympic cycle. So, in 2025, there were a host of young athletes who staked their claim as the next generation of their respective sports.
Here, then, are ESPN India's Emerging Athletes of the Year 2025:
Suruchi Phogat
Four World Cup golds through the year, and then a gold in the World Cup final, it was a stunning, breakthrough 2025 for Suruchi Phogat in the women's 10m air pistol event, as she upstaged her more fancied compatriot, Manu Bhaker, among others, throughout the year.
She shot to prominence earlier in the year, by winning back-to-back World Cup gold medals in the individual event in Buenos Aires and Lima, and partnered with Saurabh Choudhary to win bronze and gold respectively in the mixed team events over there. Suruchi followed that up with a gold medal in the Munich World Cup, and finished the year on a high by winning gold at the World Cup final in Doha.
The world championship was a bit of a disappointment for her, as she finished 14th in the qualifiers to miss out on the final, but it was a year that she should look back on with an immense amount of satisfaction.
2026 is a big year, with a couple of multi-sport events on the horizon, and the road to Los Angeles 2028 will begin to take further shape. Shooting is a fickle sport, so Suruchi will have a new challenge on her hands next year, as she figures out the road to long-term consistency, as she seeks to establish herself at the top of the 10m air pistol field.
Tanvi Sharma
In 2025, 16-year-old Tanvi Sharma became the first Indian woman to reach the final of the BWF World Junior Championship in 17 years - the first since Saina Nehwal. It has been an exceptional year for Tanvi, who has broken through some tournaments at the senior level as well.
She didn't manage to win that gold medal at the Junior World Championship, but there were some impressive performances on the BWF World Tour as well. In June, she reached the final of BWF US Open Super 300. She also made the final at the Guwahati Masters Super 100 in December, to go with a semifinal appearance in the Syed Modi Super 300, and quarterfinal appearances in Super 100s in Vietnam and Odisha.
The next step for Tanvi will be to win tournaments at Super 100 and Super 300 level, before she moves on to competing at the higher echelons of the BWF Tour.
However, she's only 16, she's got some physical development to do, which will only aid her wide array of strokes. With some more power, and the stamina to be able to sustain that power for longer, Tanvi Sharma is one to watch out for in 2026 and the years beyond.
Samrat Rana
Samrat Rana wasn't really in the international shooting fold for India in 2024, but in 2025, he made a big splash. He became the first Indian man to win a gold medal at the world championships in an Olympic pistol event, when he won the 10m air pistol gold.
It was all the more special for a rank outsider like Rana, because he dominated the event from start to finish, up against a world-class shooter like China's Hu Kai. Hu had such a dominant 2025, that the only event he didn't win was the world championship, where he was upstaged by Rana.
Throughout the event in Cairo, Rana was in his element. He topped the qualifiers with a score of 586, and then in the final, he won the moments that mattered. With six shots remaining, he hit two 10.9s in a row. Absolute perfection. With two shots remaining in that final, he trailed by 0.1, but hit 10s in both those shots to win gold. It's rare in Indian shooting for athletes to find their best shots in the most critical moments. Rana did just that.
He also won part of the Indian team that won the 10m air pistol gold at the world championships, alongside Varun Tomar and Sharvan Kumar. With the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games scheduled in 2026, Rana has set himself up well to become a household name.