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By:

Kiran D. Tare

21 August 2024 at 11:23:13 am

Breaking the Peloton

Harshita Jakhar’s appearance at the Tour de France Femmes is signals India’s arrival in sporting arenas long dominated by Europe. India’s sporting successes have traditionally been concentrated in disciplines where geography or colonial legacy created favourable conditions. While cricket grew into a national religion, hockey delivered decades of global dominance. Wrestling, badminton, shooting and now, increasingly, chess have flourished through sustained investment and nurturing of talent. ...

Breaking the Peloton

Harshita Jakhar’s appearance at the Tour de France Femmes is signals India’s arrival in sporting arenas long dominated by Europe. India’s sporting successes have traditionally been concentrated in disciplines where geography or colonial legacy created favourable conditions. While cricket grew into a national religion, hockey delivered decades of global dominance. Wrestling, badminton, shooting and now, increasingly, chess have flourished through sustained investment and nurturing of talent. Yet some disciplines have remained stubbornly foreign. The Tour de France, for instance, with its punishing mountain stages, century-old European traditions and deeply entrenched professional circuits, belonged firmly to this category. This seemingly impregnable bastion has now been breached by 19-year-old Harshita Jakhar, whose recently became the first Indian woman to feature at the Tour de France Femmes, cycling alongside emerging riders from Afghanistan, Algeria, Chile, Ethiopia, Namibia and Uganda under the Union Cycliste Internationale’s World Cycling Talent Programme. While Harshita’s ride through the ceremonial opening of Stage Two of the 2026 Tour de France Femmes may have lasted barely 4.5 kilometres, it was a moment of great import and symbolism. The Tour de France is to cycling what Wimbledon is to tennis. It has been built over generations of mythology and European dominance. For Indian cyclists, merely entering that ecosystem has long seemed a distant aspiration. Harshita’s entry was a signal that despite the barriers still remaining formidable, they are no longer insurmountable. Her participation in this elite event mirrors a broader transformation in Indian sport. With a rise in incomes and an improvement in sporting infrastructure, upwardly mobile Indian families are willing to back unconventional careers. As a result, many young Indians are now venturing into disciplines once regarded as almost exclusively European preserves. Alpine skiing, equestrian events, sailing, rowing and endurance cycling are no longer exotic curiosities reserved for white men and women. The pattern extends well beyond cycling. In 2009, Reena Kaushal Dharmshaktu became the first Indian woman to ski from the Antarctic coast to the South Pole in 2009, while Kaamya Karthikeyan reached the Pole last year as the youngest Indian to do so. Their achievements have expanded the boundaries of what Indians could plausibly aspire to achieve. Harshita’s ride belongs to this tradition. Her own journey has been remarkably grounded. Raised in Rajasthan, she trained at the Sports Authority of India’s National Centre of Excellence in Patiala under the watchful eye of her father, Rakesh Jakhar, himself a former cyclist who competed at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. She snared three gold medals at the 2025 Khelo India Youth Games, which announced her as one of India’s brightest cycling prospects. Earlier, she had collected a silver and two bronze medals at the 2024 Asian Junior Cycling Championships, demonstrating that her promise extended well beyond domestic competition. Cycling presents challenges unlike most Olympic sports with a lot riding on the quality of sporting ecosystems. Unlike India, Europe possesses thousands of kilometres of dedicated cycling routes, professional clubs, sophisticated racing calendars and generations of accumulated expertise. Young riders grow up immersed in a culture where road racing is woven into everyday life. India is only beginning to construct comparable foundations. That makes programmes such as the UCI World Cycling Talent Programme especially valuable. For talents like Harshita, exposure to elite competition cannot be replicated in training camps alone. Riding alongside the world’s best, absorbing tactical nuances, learning race management and simply becoming comfortable within cycling’s highest circles all contribute towards the fulfilment of promise. India’s sporting story increasingly depends on precisely these forms of international integration. Two decades ago, an Indian woman participating in an event associated with the Tour de France would have seemed implausible. But Harshita’s presence has now shattered those barriers. By representing India at one of cycling’s grandest stages, Harshita has expanded the country’s sporting horizon. Young Indian cyclists watching her in Switzerland may now imagine themselves competing in races that previously existed only on television. Her appearance, however symbolic, is part of a tradition where young Indians have begun appearing in sports like Formula racing, rowing, fencing, squash and equestrian events - disciplines that once seemed distant from the country’s sporting DNA. For generations, the peloton belonged almost entirely to Europe. Now, it is making room for the rest of the world. Harshita Jakhar’s ride in Switzerland has shown that India now belongs to the conversation.

AI in Sperm Sorting: An Unbiased Decision for A Better Outcome

Artificial Intelligence or AI is revolutionising fertility treatments of the future. The inclusion of AI enhances the accuracy, efficiency, and objectivity of sperm selection, hence potentially improving fertility outcomes by leaps and bounds. Traditionally, sperm sorting through manual methods is subjective to judgments. Processes like centrifugation and swim-up methods are used to separate sperm based on motility and morphology. Although they are effective, they have their limitations, leading to human errors that affect the success rates of fertility treatment. For instance, studies have shown that traditional sperm sorting techniques can have variability in success rates, with reported live birth rates ranging between 15 per cent to 25 per cent per cycle depending on the method and quality of sperm. Hence the introduction of AI helps in maintaining consistency in evaluations of sperm, using the same data set for every sample which leads to better judgments.


Automation and Standardisation- Automation of sperm selection and also introduction of AI in the process have improved the results in ART. AI-assisted sperm selection improves the accuracy in choosing high-quality sperm for fertilisation purposes, and also, pregnancy and live birth rates might be improved. Technologies like Intracytoplasmic Morphologically Selected Sperm Injection along with AI ensure the chances of pregnancies increase by about 10-20 per cent compared to the standard procedures. AI and Automation will decrease time taken to analyze sperm and increase opportunities to select better sperm with DNA integrity for better development and higher success rates in embryo selection. These processes ensure that the sperm selection process follows consistent criteria, reducing variability in outcomes caused by human error.


Analysing Complex Data for Better Outcomes- AI plays a crucial in improving IVF outcomes by analysing complex data and providing tailored recommendations. AI-driven tools and models such as those on SpOvum.ai point towards an opportunity to optimise ovarian stimulation decisions by assessing patient characteristics and follicle growth patterns. A study revealed that the use of AI in IVF improved egg yield and reduced medication costs. AI enables fertility specialists to make data-driven choices, improving overall IVF success rates and streamlining treatment processes.


Reducing Human Error- AI models can continuously learn and refine their performance by being trained on newer data. This adaptability ensures the technology remains unbiased and up-to-date with the latest scientific insights into sperm quality and fertility success rates. Studies have shown that AI-driven sperm sorting can decrease human-related errors by up to 25 per cent, improving sperm selection quality in terms of morphology and motility.


Reduction of Sperm Damage- The new AI-driven sperm sorting techniques also include microfluidic systems that are known to exhibit several advantages over the most commonly used conventional method, which is centrifugation. Traditional centrifugation methods, such as density gradient centrifugation, also cause severe oxidative stress and DNA fragmentation of the sperm because of the very high mechanical forces involved. The AI-infused microfluidic sorting minimises this damage significantly by involving gentler processes that mimic the natural pathway of sperm selection. The studies show that the process of microfluidic sorting decreases DNA fragmentation in sperm, which gives improved opportunities for success for IVF. For example, DNA fragmentation is 20 percent lower in sperm sorted using microfluidic processes than in traditional processing methods.


AI is bound to play an increasingly definitive role in fertility treatments, which will improve the outcomes for couples experiencing infertility.


(The author is a Co-Founder & CEO at SpOvum® Technologies. Views personal.)

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