India sent over a 100 athletes to compete at the Olympic Games for a third consecutive edition. That contingent returned with its joint second-best medal haul of six medals.
Neeraj Chopra won silver in the javelin throw, to go along with three bronze medals in shooting and a third position standing each in men’s hockey and wrestling.
But outside of the six medallists, there were several near-misses and even an ongoing struggle for Vinesh Phogat at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, where it is till uncertain if the wrestler will be given an Olympic medal for being 100 grams overweight.
This was a campaign where some athletes performed under-par while a few others defied all expectations and excelled.
The Field goes through the entire contingent to dissect their performances in Paris.
With both the men’s and women’s teams qualifying for Paris via rankings, there were a lot of hopes that rested on the shoulders of the six-member Indian archery contingent. Led by veteran Deepika Kumari, on her return from a maternity break a year ago, and youngster Dhiraj Bommadevara, the country hoped Paris would see the coming of India’s first Olympic medal in the sport.
The campaign began well enough as the six Indians put in a solid performance during the qualification round before the Paris Games officially began.
The men’s team were seeded third and the women’s team fourth while the mixed team comprising Bommadevara and Ankita Bhakat were seeded fifth.
However, when the knock-out rounds began, they did not build on that momentum. Both the men’s and women’s teams, receiving a bye in their first round due to their higher seeding, exited the event in the quarter-finals.
In the men’s individual event, Bommadevara went until the Round of 32 while both Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav exited in the opening round. Bhakat also lost in the first round of the women’s individual event while Kumari and 18-year-old Bhajan Kaur reached the Round of 16.
The Indian contingent did cross one landmark when they reached the semi-finals of the mixed team event with Bommadevara and Bhakat, the first time ever for India at an Olympic edition.
Neeraj Chopra was India’s biggest hope for an Olympic medal, not only in athletics but in the entire Games itself. Coming into Paris, Chopra, the reigning Olympic and World Champion javelin thrower, had finished on the podium in every competition he had competed in since 2018.
The Indian Army Subedar delivered on the promise by winning silver as he saw his friend and rival, Pakistan’s Nadeem Arshad win gold with an Olympic record throw.
Apart from Chopra, only steeplechaser Avinash Sable reached a track and field final in Paris. Sable, the 2022 Commonwealth Games silver medallist, was yearning to make amends for Tokyo 2020 when he failed to reach the final.
In the quickest heat, Sable sailed through to the final with the fifth-fastest time. In a field stacked with runners who regularly posted timings in the low eight-minute marks, Sable finished just outside the top 10 with a respectable time of 8:14.18 min.
Though Parul Chaudhary did not make it to the final of the women’s 5000m or 3000m steeplechase events, she posted her season best timings in the qualification round of both events.
The men’s 4x400m relay team also posted their season best time in the heat but missed the cut for the final by less than half a second.
It was a disappointing campaign from the likes of shot putter Tajinderpal Singh Toor, javelin thrower Annu Rani, long jumper Jeswin Aldrin and triple jumpers Praveen Chithravel and Abdulla Aboobacker with none of them even threatening to qualify for their respective finals.
India’s medal winning streak at the Olympics in badminton came to a halt at the La Chapelle Arena in Paris. For the first time since Saina Nehwal’s bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics, no Indian shuttler stood on the Olympic podium.
PV Sindhu’s bid for a hat-trick of medals was denied by a raging He Bing Jiao, who went on to win the silver medal later, in the pre-quarterfinals. The double Olympic medallist started off with two comfortable wins, but fell to the Chinese shuttler on the same day Sindhu had defeated He to win a bronze in Tokyo three years back.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, India’s best medal bet in badminton, were in for a rude shock as they went down to eventual bronze medallists Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik of Malaysia in the quarter-finals.
The women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto endured a torrid time as they bowed out with three losses in as many matches.
Contrastingly, Lakshya Sen gave a good account of himself. He emerged unbeaten from Group L, despite his opening win being deleted. Sen went on to reach the semi-finals before losing two matches in a row from a winning position to finish fourth and bow out empty handed after all the hardwork. He also ended the run of compatriot HS Prannoy in the Round of 16.
The Indian boxing contingent’s 2024 Olympics journey ended without adding to the country’s medal tally. Historically, India has claimed three bronze medals in Olympic boxing – Vijender Singh in Beijing 2008, Mary Kom in London 2012, and Lovlina Borgohain in Tokyo 2020.
However, in Paris 2024, none were secured. The six-member team, comprising four women and two men, saw four boxers eliminated in the preliminary rounds.
It was anticipated that a good showing will be tall order partly due to the tough draws that were handed to the top medal prospects – Nikhat Zareen and Lovlina Borgohain – but the rest of it was largely down to the boxers being outclassed by better quality opponents. The turbulence behind the scenes in the build-up to Paris had also meant that the possibility of good results was looking grim, but returning with no medals at all is quite the shock.
Nishant Dev and Lovlina Borgohain advanced to the quarter-finals but fell short of securing a medal, leaving the Indian contingent without a podium finish. It seems the wake-up call we spoke about did not come in time…
The 2022 Asian Games gold medallist, Anush Agarwalla had a tough time at the Paris Olympics. He finished ninth in his group with a score of 66.444% riding atop Sir Caramello Old and failed to qualify for the final.
At the Tokyo Olympics, Aditi Ashok had a breakthrough tournament that saw her slip down to fourth position on the last day of the women’s golf event. There were hopes and expectations that she could perhaps do better this time.
But it was an overall underwhelming golf campaign for the four Indians competing.
Shubhankar Sharma and Gaganjeet Bhullar finished the men’s event tied 40th and 45th respectively. In the last few days of Paris, Aditi and Diksha Dagar finished tied 29th and 49th in the women’s event.
It was yet another fruitful Olympic campaign for the Indian men’s hockey team as they clinched bronze yet again. It was the perfect send off for PR Sreejesh as the veteran goalkeeper called time on his illustrious career.
With the women’s team failing to qualify for Paris 2024 after a stunning run at Tokyo 2020, all hopes were pinned on the men’s team to return with a medal.
They began the campaign cautiously, narrowly beating New Zealand before rescuing a point against Argentina. They then beat Ireland to secure their place in the quarter-final before losing a close match to Belgium.
They finally hit their stride in their final group game as they beat Australia for the first time at the Olympics since the 1972 Munich Games. They followed that up with a stunning back-to-the-wall performance against Great Britain in the quarter-final. Down to 10 players after Amit Rohidas was sent off, India held Great Britain to a 1-1 before Sreejesh’s heroics in the penalty shootout helped them reach the semi-final.
Rohidas’ one-match suspension hurt India in the semi-final as Germany clinched their place in the final with a narrow 3-2 win. India bounced back from the defeat to secure a comeback 2-1 win over Spain and win bronze, their 13th Olympic Games medal in the history of the sport.
Tulika Maan was the only Indian competing in the judo event. But the silver medallist from the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games was handed a tough draw as she faced Cuba’s Idalys Ortiz in the first round.
Ortiz is a four-time Olympic medallist, including winning gold in London 2012. She made quick work of the opening match to hand Maan a quick defeat.
Having qualified for the Olympics only three years after taking up the sport, Balraj Panwar gave a good account of himself in men’s single sculls. He qualified for Final D and finished 23rd overall in the standings, clocking his best time at the Games.
Both Vishnu Saravanan and Nethra Kumanan were appearing in their second Olympics at Paris 2024.
Competing in their events in Marseille, the men’s and women’s dinghy respectively, Saravanan and Kumanan both improved on their overall finishes from Tokyo with an 18th place finish for Saravanan and a 21st place finish for Kumanan.
After the troubles and disappointment faced in Rio and Tokyo, there were a lot of expectations on the shoulders of the Indian shooting contingent, the second-largest for the country after athletics in a single sport for Paris.
But the 21-member contingent were the most successful for India in Paris, with three medals and seven finals, including three fourth-place finishes. Manu Bhaker led the way through, qualifying for the final in all her three events, winning two medals in the 10m air pistol and mixed team events, and finishing fourth in her pet event, the 25m pistol.
Bhaker’s efforts made her the first female shooter to win an Olympic medal for India and also the first Indian athlete to win two Olympic medals in the same edition since Independence. She also joined the likes of Sushil Kumar and PV Sindhu as the only Indians with two Olympic medals in individual events.
While there was heartbreak for Babuta who was in second place during the elimination rounds in the final and ultimately finished in fourth, there were also fumbles during the qualification rounds for Sift Kaur Samra, Vijayveer Sidhu, Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar and Anish Bhanwala.
The shooting contingent ended with a near-miss of the podium with Maheshwari Chauhan and Anantjeet Singh Naruka losing the skeet mixed team bronze medal match to China.
Srihari Nataraj and Dhinidhi Desinghu were handed the universality quota for the 2024 Paris Olympics, after no Indian swimmers were able to break the ‘A’ or ‘B’ qualification standard for the Games.
Desinghu, the youngest Indian in Paris, won her women’s 200m freestyle heat but finished 23rd overall with a timing of 2:06.96, thereby missing out on the final. Nataraj, meanwhile, finished second in his men’s 100m backstroke heat, clocking 55.01s but was 33rd fastest overall and failed to qualify for the final.
Manika Batra and Sreeja Akula became the first-ever Indian table tennis players to make it to the third round of the singles event at the Olympics.
Their runs ended when Batra lost to Japan’s world No 12 Miu Hirano and Akula was beaten by world No 1 Sun Yinghsa of China.
They were also a part of the women’s team that beat fourth seeds Romania 3-2 before losing in the quarter-finals to Germany.
In the men’s event, India’s flag-bearer at the opening ceremony Achanta Sharath Kamal was competing in his fifth Olympic Games. However he lost in the first round of the men’s singles event ot Deni Kozul of Slovenia.
Harmeet Desai, also in men’s singles, started his campaign in the preliminary round where he beat Jordan’s Zaid Abo Yaman to make it to the main draw. He was handed a tough draw however, as he took on France’s Felix Lebrun, the current world No 5, who went on to win their match 4-0.
The men’s team was handed the toughest possible draw with an opening round match against China. The world No 1 team came up with a straight-match win as they went on to win gold.
This was one of the sports where India has won a medal in the past. But that came a long time ago, when Leander Paes won the bronze in the men’s singles event.
There were a few hopes that Sumit Nagal would be able to get past a few opponents, given that the venue for the tennis event in Paris, Roland Garros, had his favoured clay surface.
Nagal was handed a tricky draw, facing mercurial Frenchman Corentin Moutet in the opening round. Backed by a boisterous French crowd, Moutet took home a 6-2, 2-6, 7-5 win.
In men’s doubles, Rohan Bopanna and N Sriram Balaji were originally to play the French team of Edouard Roger-Vasselin and Fabien Reboul, only for the latter to pull out a few hours before their match. At the Olympics, the rules dictate that a player may be replaced by an athlete already competing at the tournament in a different event, and so Gael Monfils stepped in.
The match only took place a day later due to a rain delay, but the French team proved too strong for Bopanna and Balaji, as they won 7-5, 6-2.
Mirabai Chanu, India’s lone representative in this sport and one of the country’s strongest medal contenders, missed the podium in Paris despite coming in as one of the lifters to look out for. The Tokyo silver medallist fell just one kilogram short of the bronze, which went to Thailand’s Khambao Surodchana.
While the narrow margin is agonising, Chanu had anticipated the heightened competition in her category long before she arrived in Paris. It is what is the biggest reason for the lack of a better result for India.
Familiar rivals like Surochana and China’s Hou Zhihui were expected to pose significant challenges, but it was first-time Olympian Mihaela Cambei of Romania who delivered a surprising performance. Despite the setback of a recent hip injury, time away from the sport and subsequent rehabilitation, Chanu fought bravely to secure a fourth-place finish.
Thanks to Aman Sehrawat, India’s lone male wrestler in Paris, the country extended its streak of winning a wrestling medal for the fifth consecutive Olympics. The situation had started to look bleak until Sehrawat delivered a much-needed boost to India’s medal tally, ultimately securing the nation’s final medal in Paris.
The disqualification of Vinesh Phogat was particularly heartbreaking, as she was on the verge of making history as the first Indian woman to reach a final and potentially win gold. The shock and grief leading to her exit will linger in our memories for years to come.
Young Reetika Hooda came close to medaling but was outclassed by a higher-seeded and more experienced opponent in the quarter-finals.
Antim Panghal, another strong medal hope, suffered a shocking humiliating defeat in her opening round.
Anshu Malik was eliminated in the first round by the eventual bronze medallist in her category, while Nisha Dahiya’s campaign ended tragically in the quarter-final as she succumbed to injury and defeat after leading for most of her bout.
Despite winning just the solitary medal through Sehrawat, the Indian wrestling contingent put up a brave fight in Paris thanks to Phogat, Hooda and Dahiya.