An evaluation of India’s 10 main medal hopes:
Neeraj Chopra | Athletics, Males’s Javelin Throw: India’s best athlete and single largest medal hope.The Tokyo Olympics gold medalist has gained each championship of notice, together with the distinguished Diamond League. A dodgy adductor muscle, although, is an space of slight concern.
Nikhat Zareen | Boxing, Girls’s 50kg: The reigning queen of Indian boxing for the previous two years, she has gained back-to-back gold medals within the 2022 and 2023 World Championships. Nikhat is predicted to win a medal.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty | Badminton, Males’s Doubles: 2023 was a landmark 12 months for the gifted duo. They gained almost all the things, together with the BWF World Tour Tremendous 1000 title and the gold medal at Asian Video games, and climbed as much as world No. 1 rating. The quick courts in Paris will swimsuit their aggressive model. If they will deal with the strain, they’ll end on the rostrum.
PV Sindhu | Badminton, Girls’s Singles: Silver in 2016 Rio, bronze in 2020 Tokyo, Sindhu is aiming to grow to be the primary Indian in badminton to win three Olympic medals. No Indian has gained three particular person Olympic medals both. Nevertheless, she hasn’t been within the biggest of kind currently and a troublesome draw is prone to pit her towards defending champion Chen Yufei within the quarterfinals.
Antim Panghal | Wrestling, Girls’s 53kg Freestyle: To her credit score, she has gained medals in each senior worldwide event she has participated in, together with a bronze within the 2023 World Championships. Thankfully for Antim, Japan’s unbeaten Akari Fujinami is not in her half and he or she stands a good likelihood of creating it to the ultimate.
Aman Sehrawat | Wrestling, Males’s 57kg Freestyle: Speedy and agile, the debutant Olympian is in high kind, having struck gold at each the 2022 Asian Video games and the 2023 Asian Championships. On the choice trials for the qualifying occasions, he overcame childhood idol and Tokyo Olympics silver medallist Ravi Dahiya. A very good wager to win a medal at Paris.
Sift Kaur Samra | Taking pictures: Girls’s 50m Rifle three Positions: Taking pictures’s brightest hope. Samra’s energy is her unimaginable calm. The 22-year-old from Punjab clinched a person gold and workforce silver on the Hangzhou Asian Video games. Final 12 months, she additionally broke the 50m rifle three positions’ world report. Within the Asiad, she outperformed her nearest competitor by a staggering margin of seven.three factors.
Manu Bhaker | Taking pictures: Girls’s 25m Pistol & 10m Air Pistol Group: Will probably be redemption time for Bhaker after Tokyo 2020 noticed her in tears following a pistol malfunction. The 22-year-old will characterize India in three separate occasions: girls’s 25m air pistol, girls’s 10m air pistol and 10m air pistol combined workforce. Apparently, her reunion with former India shooter Jaspal Rana as her coach final 12 months has resulted in a pointy upswing in her scores.
Tarundeep Rai, Dheeraj Bommadevara, Pravin Jadhav | Archery, Males’s Recurve Group: India has by no means gained an archery medal on the Olympics regardless of profitable medals by the sackful at numerous World Cups. This time, the boys’s recurve workforce appears the most effective wager. On the World Cup Stage 1 in April, the trio toppled reigning Olympic champions South Korea to seize the workforce gold.
Hockey | Males’s Group: The lads’s hockey workforce ended a 40-year-long medal drought and sparked celebrations by profitable a bronze in Tokyo. This was adopted by gold on the Hangzhou Asiad, which booked its journey to Paris. India is in Pool B together with reigning Olympic champion Belgium, Australia, Argentina, New Zealand and Eire. The workforce, led by Harmanpreet Singh, should end among the many high 4 to progress to the quarters.
Do You Know?
Kolkata-born sprinter Purma C Bannerjee was India’s first Olympic flag-bearer in Antwerp 1920.
