 "Shooter Manu Bhaker and Wrestler Aman Sehrawat (Right) (Pic-Twitter)")
Shooter Manu Bhaker and Wrestler Aman Sehrawat (Right) (Pic-Twitter)
The 2024 Paris Olympics has ended with India winning a total of 6 medals, including one silver and five bronze medals. The Summer Olympics in Paris will always be remembered as an Olympics of mixed emotions for the Indian contingent. They saw records being broken when shooter Manu Bhaker became the first Indian to win two medals at the same Olympics and wrestler Aman Sehrawat became the youngest Olympic medalist for India, while they also witnessed heartbreaks when Vinesh Phogat was disqualified from her gold medal bout, and Lakshya Sen almost became the first Indian male shuttler to earn a podium finish.
Here is the list of India’s highs and lows during the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Shooters create records
India opened their account in Paris, with shooter Manu Bhaker securing a bronze medal and giving the shooting contingent a great start. The second and third medals also came to India through shooting, with Manu winning another bronze in the mixed team event with Sarabjot Singh, while in men’s rifle 50m three positions, Swapnil Kusale won third bronze for India, making shooting India’s most successful event in 2024 Paris Olympics.
Hockey shines again
In the history of the Summer Olympics, no other event has given India more medals than hockey. Harmanpreet Singh-led men in blue kept the numbers growing by winning India’s 13th Olympics medal in bronze in Paris. However, more than bronze, India’s victory over Australia in the group stage and quarterfinal victory over Great Britain despite being one man down for 48 minutes shows that men in blue are ready to resurrect India’s golden age of hockey.
Boxers fell short
The Indian team had great hopes with the boxing contingent in Paris and hoped to secure more than one medal from this event. However, India failed to secure any medal in boxing, with only Nishant Dev and Lovlina Borgohain coming close to a medal by reaching the quarterfinals. But, both of them lost their quarterfinal match after winning round 1, leading India to end their Paris campaign without any medals in boxing.
No help from badminton
Badminton was one of those events which was expected to give India more than medals at Paris, with a contingent including players like two-time Olympics medalist PV Sindhu, Lakshya Sen, HS Prannoy, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty in the fray. However, only Lakshya Sen even came close to a medal after qualifying for the bronze medal match in the men’s singles event. Lakshya also ended up empty-handed after he lost the match to his opponent from Malaysia despite winning the first game by 1-2.
The youngest medalist
At 21 years of age, Aman Sehrwat became India’s youngest Olympic medalist after securing the bronze medal in the men’s 57kg freestyle wrestling event. Aman was the only Indian wrestler to win a medal in Paris. However, his victory became more important after India lost a sure shot medal when wrestler Vinesh Phogat was disqualified from her gold medal bout in the women’s 50 kg freestyle event after being found over the required weight limit during the way in before the finals.
Neeraj fails to conquer his Kryptonite
Neeraj Chopra, who won the second consecutive Olympic medal in Paris, looked unsatisfied after finishing at the top of the podium despite winning silver with his 89.45m throw. Neeraj, who has won everything the sport of javelin throw has to offer, is yet to cross the 90m mark, which once again became the deciding factor between him and the eventual gold medal winner Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem, who created an Olympic record of 92.97 m to secured the gold medal and a victory over Neeraj for the first time. After the event, Neeraj revealed that he has been suffering from a groyne injury, which might need surgery soon, but he promises to return stronger.
First Published: Aug 11 2024 | 4:28 PM IS