Year-Ender 2025: Sporting Moments That Shaped The Season

There are years that drift by, and then there are years that demand to be remembered. 2025 was one of those rare years, packed with sporting moments that captured hearts, from India’s women’s cricket team lifting their first World Cup and Neeraj Chopra breaching 90 metres, to Vinesh Phogat’s comeback and Kohli and Rohit Sharma’s Test retirements.

Triumphs, heartbreaks, records, and tragedies made this a year impossible to forget.

Indian sport found new belief, women’s sport surged into the mainstream, and the global sporting order shifted in ways that will shape the years ahead. Some stories lifted nations. Others forced uncomfortable pauses. Together, they captured the emotional extremes that only sport can produce.

Here’s a look at the sporting events that shaped the Indian and international sports scene in 2025, the moments that mattered long after the noise faded.

Vinesh Phogat: The Wrestling Queen Who Refused To Fade

She walked away once, carrying the weight of heartbreak that no athlete should endure. Disqualified from the Paris 2024 Olympic final for being just 100 grams over the limit, Vinesh Phogat retired with her biggest dream still out of reach.

In December 2025, she returned. Calm, certain, unyielding. Proclaiming that “the fire never left,” the 31-year-old announced her comeback with the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics firmly in sight. It wasn’t nostalgia or noise that pulled her back. It was unfinished business. Indian wrestling didn’t just get a champion again, it got its fiercest competitor back.

India Women Finally Claim Their World Cup Moment

Two finals lost. Two decades of waiting. Countless near-misses that came with polite applause but lingering regret.

That narrative ended in Navi Mumbai in November 2025. India’s women defeated South Africa by 52 runs to win their first-ever ICC Women’s ODI World Cup, delivering a victory that felt bigger than the scoreboard. Streets erupted, homes turned into celebration hubs, and women’s cricket in India crossed into a new commercial and cultural reality.

This wasn’t just a historic win. It was a turning point.

Mondo Duplantis: The King Of Pole Vault

If one athlete ruled the season from start to finish, it was Armand "Mondo" Duplantis.

2025 belonged to Duplantis. The Swedish pole vaulter rewrote the limits of his sport, breaking the world record four times and ending the year unbeaten. His 6.30m clearance at the World Championships in Tokyo wasn’t just another record, it was the defining athletic moment of the season, delivered under pressure, on the biggest stage.

Duplantis didn’t just clear bars; he cleared records. It reached a point where the battle for gold felt over before it even began, leaving the rest of the field scrapping for second and third.

CWG 2030 Returns To India

India’s long-term sporting ambitions took a decisive step forward in 2025. In November, the country officially secured the hosting rights for the Centenary Commonwealth Games, with Ahmedabad confirmed as the host city.

Ratified at the Commonwealth Sport General Assembly in Glasgow, the decision marked India’s return as a major multi-sport host for the first time since the 2010 Delhi Games. More importantly, it strengthened India’s push towards hosting the 2036 Olympics.

Neeraj Chopra: Touching 90, Then Hitting The Ground

In May 2025, Indian athletics witnessed a breakthrough decades in the making. Neeraj Chopra finally breached the elusive 90-metre barrier, launching the javelin 90.23 metres at the Doha Diamond League. It was historic, emotional, and symbolic, placing him in an elite global club.

But the season didn’t end in triumph. At the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Chopra faced one of the toughest nights of his career, finishing eighth with a best throw of 84.03m, his first finish outside the top two internationally since Tokyo 2020 and first time missing the podium since 2018.

2025 reminded everyone that greatness includes setbacks, not immunity from them. And Chopra vowed, "I’ll be back."

Lionel Messi’s India Tour: Passion, Chaos And Unfiltered Fandom

When Lionel Messi arrived in India, the country responded the only way it knows how, with overwhelming emotion. His tour concluded in New Delhi with a lap of honour at a near-capacity Arun Jaitley Stadium, fans chanting his name inside a venue built for cricket.

But the tour also exposed the raw edges of Indian fandom. The opening stop in Kolkata descended into chaos, with vandalised stands, breached barricades and frustration among fans who paid heavily for fleeting access. Messi thanked supporters for their love. India showed both its hunger and its growing pains as a football nation.

Kirsty Coventry Shatters The Olympic Glass Ceiling

Global sport witnessed a watershed moment in 2025. Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Coventry was elected the 10th President of the International Olympic Committee, becoming the first woman and the first African to hold the role.

Elected in a single round of voting at the IOC Session in Costa Navarino, Coventry’s appointment marked a decisive shift in Olympic leadership. It wasn’t symbolic progress, it was structural change.

2025: The Year of Women’s Sport

2025 was all about women’s sport. It took over stadiums, screens, and headlines, proving achievements belong front and centre.

England lifted the Women’s Rugby World Cup in a record-breaking tournament, with 81,885 fans at Twickenham, half watching a women’s match for the first time. India’s World Cup win in cricket sparked nationwide celebrations, while Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone stunned on the track with a 47.78-second 400m flat.

The year didn’t just see women’s sport succeed, it redefined what’s possible and proved it stands shoulder to shoulder with the best, no labels, just sport.

Diogo Jota: Football In Mourning

On July 3, 2025, football was forced to pause. Liverpool and Portugal forward Diogo Jota died in a car crash in Spain at the age of 28, alongside his brother Andre Silva.

Recently married and a father of three, Jota’s death sent shockwaves through the sport. Tributes poured in, but the sense of loss lingered. Some moments transcend sport, and this was one of them.

Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma Retire From Tests

May 2025 marked the end of an era in Indian cricket. Virat Kohli retired from Test cricket on May 12 after 123 matches, leaving behind 9,230 runs, 30 centuries and a captaincy legacy that reshaped India’s approach to the format. He didn’t just score runs, he changed mindsets.

Five days earlier, Rohit Sharma had announced his own Test retirement. With 4,301 runs and a late-career resurgence as an opener, Rohit chose timing over decline. Together, their exits left a vacuum that statistics alone cannot fill.

RCB Finally Lift The IPL - Joy Marred By Tragedy

Royal Challengers Bengaluru finally ended their 18-year wait for an IPL title in June 2025, delivering a moment fans had endured countless heartbreaks to witness. It was also Virat Kohli’s first IPL trophy with the only franchise he ever represented.

But celebration turned to tragedy. A stampede during the victory celebrations in Bengaluru claimed 11 lives and injured dozens more. What should have been unfiltered joy became a national moment of mourning, leaving the triumph forever shadowed.

Blue Tigresses Make History On Merit

While Indian football continued to struggle for consistency, the women’s team delivered a moment that changed the sport’s trajectory in the country. In July 2025, a gritty 2–1 win over Thailand in Chiang Mai sealed India’s qualification for the AFC Women’s Asian Cup Australia 2026, the first time they made it through a qualification campaign on merit.

Sangita Basfore rose to the occasion with a decisive brace in a winner-takes-all showdown, ending years of near-misses and no-questions-asked entries. This time, there were no favours. Only performance. Only belief.