With Indian shooter Manu Bhaker opening the medals tally for India with a bronze in the 10-metre air pistol shooting competition, expectations are high from the remaining participants as the Indian contingent hopes to better its best ever medals tally of seven in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. A total of 117 athletes make up the Indian contingent in 16 sports disciplines, comprising of 70 men and 47 women. They will be competing in 69 events for 95 medals at the Paris Olympics 2024.
At Tokyo 2020, the Indian contingent was made up of 124 athletes, the largest that the country had sent to the Games. The number of Indian athletes at the Olympic Summer Games has steadily increased over the past few games. Here’s a look at who are all in the fray:
Tennis star Rohan Bopanna at 44 is the oldest athlete to represent India at Paris 2024 while swimmer Dhinidhi Desinghu at 14 is the youngest competitor. Athletics is the largest contributor to the Indian contingent with 29 players.
Trap shooter Bhowneesh Mendiratta won India’s first Paris 2024 quota at the 2022 ISSF World Championships but could not make the cut for the final team following national trials. Prithviraj Tondaiman was awarded the quota in the men’s trap event instead. Indian shooters have secured a quota in every Olympic shooting category for the first time.
The National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) also exchanged one of the pistol quotas for a women’s trap shooter after Manu Bhaker had topped the national trials in the women’s 10m air pistol and the women’s 25m pistol, freeing up a quota in the pistol for shotgun events. The freed up quota went to Shreyasi Singh, who will compete in the women’s trap event.
Rudrankksh Patil, who obtained a men’s 10m air rifle shooting quota for India during the qualifying period, could not make it to the final team either. Sandeep Singh took his place following the national trials. Similarly, Tilottama Sen, Akhil Sheoran, Mehuli Ghosh, Shriyanka Sadangi, Varun Tomar and Palak Gulia, who all obtained quota in their respective events, also missed out.
In sports like shooting and wrestling, quotas are won by countries and not individual athletes which means the athlete who clinched the quota can be replaced by another, leading up to the Games.
As national Olympic committees have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games, athletes’ participation at the Paris Games depends on their NOC selecting them to represent their delegation at Paris 2024. Race walkers Priyanka Goswami and Akshdeep Singh, meanwhile, were the first Indians to qualify for athletics events at Paris 2024.
In the men’s 20km race walk, four Indian athletes breached the Paris Olympics qualifying standard while one made the cut via the world rankings route. However, since each national federation can send a maximum of three athletes in the event to the Olympics, Akshdeep Singh, Vikash Singh and Paramjeet Singh Bisht were selected with Ram Baboo missing out. Meanwhile, while Priyanka and Akshdeep secured a quota for India in the marathon race walk mixed relay event, Suraj will be the one partnering Priyanka in Paris.
Murali Sreeshankar managed to breach the qualifying standard in the men’s long jump but won’t be travelling to Paris as a knee injury ruled him out for the entire 2024 season.
India reclaimed the boxing quota in the women’s 57kg via Jaismine Lamboria at the Olympic qualifiers in Bangkok in June after original quota-holder Parveen Hooda, who had booked the slot at the 2023 Asian Games, was suspended for whereabouts failures. In badminton, players make the cut based on rankings and NOCs need to confirm them.
Source: Paris 2024 Organising Committee