Godfrey Brown
1915 - 1995
HPI 63.8422 languages
British sprinter
The Most Famous
Athletes from India
135 notable people
This page contains a list of the greatest Indians Athletes. The pantheon dataset contains 13,875 Athletes, 135 of which were born in India. This makes India the birth place of the 29th most number of Athletes behind Argentina and South Africa.
Top 10 Indian Athletes
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Indian Athletes of all time. This list of famous Indian Athletes is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography's online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Indian Athletes.
#1 #2 
Balbir Singh Sr.
1923 - 2020
HPI 59.1121 languagesIndian field hockey player
#3 
Charles Gmelin
1872 - 1950
HPI 59.0426 languagesBritish athlete
#4 
Launceston Elliot
1874 - 1930
HPI 58.8326 languagesScottish weightlifter
#5 
K. D. Jadhav
1926 - 1984
HPI 55.9819 languagesOlympic wrestler (1926-1984)
#6 
Fauja Singh
1911 - 2025
HPI 55.9120 languagesBritish-Indian centenarian marathon runner
#7 
P. T. Usha
b. 1964
HPI 53.0930 languagesIndian athlete
#8 
Leslie Claudius
1927 - 2012
HPI 50.2625 languagesIndian field hockey player
#9 
Udham Singh
1928 - 2000
HPI 50.0618 languagesIndian field hockey player
#10 
Richard Allen
1902 - 1969
HPI 49.6022 languagesIndian field hockey player
People by Birth Decade
Browse notable Indians Athletes grouped by birth decade. Each decade shows the top 10 by HPI; expand to see everyone.
2000s(15)
1990s(66)
1980s(27)
1970s(7)
1940s(1)
1910s(2)
1900s(1)
1870s(2)
Overlapping Lives
Which Athletes were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 25 most globally memorable Athletes since 1700.
SPORTS
