It’s an Olympic year, which means little of the sporting action before or after that mega-spectacle is likely to feel like it matters. All eyes will be on how things unfold over that one fortnight this year, as Paris hosts athletes of the world from July 26 to August 11.
This will be the world’s first Summer Olympics-as-normal since Rio 2016. Fans return to the party, after a delayed and spectator-less Tokyo Games, muted by the pandemic. This will also be an Olympics unlike most others, coming as it does only three years after the postponed Tokyo Olympics were finally held in 2021.
In this current curtailed cycle, India’s athletes have taken strides in the right direction.
At the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in 2022, India took home 61 medals, behind only Australia (178), England (176) and Canada (92). This came a year after the country’s seven-medal outing at the Tokyo Olympics, its highest medal tally ever at the Games.
And then of course there were the Asian Games in Hangzhou, where India broke its records of best-ever medal haul, raising it from 70, a record set in 2018, to 107 in 2023.
The country will now be watching to see if this brave new generation of Indian athletes can translate the high of triple-digit Asian Games medals into double-digit Olympics podium finishes.
Neeraj Chopra, for instance, is already excelling among the world’s finest, having set a number of records for India in 2023 alone (first gold at the World Athletics Championships; first Indian to win in the Diamond League).
Chopra’s historic gold at the Tokyo Games — the first Indian and first Asian to ever win gold in javelin throw — marked the start of a shift in Indian athletics. At the Asian Games, for instance, Chopra successfully defended his crown, and shared the podium with fellow Indian Kishore Jena, who won silver at his Asian Games debut.
Avinash Sable, meanwhile, won silver at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, breaking a Kenyan stranglehold on the men’s 3000m steeplechase; and won gold at the Asian Games. Triple-jumpers Eldhose Paul and Abdulla Aboobacker gave India a rare 1-2 finish at the Commonwealth Games podium in that discipline. Murali Sreeshankar brought home a long-jump silver, and Tejaswin Shankar, a high-jump bronze.
If Chopra wins in Paris, that would mark another first. No individual Indian medallist has ever won golds in consecutive Olympic Games.
Another great big hope in Paris is hockey. In Tokyo, the Indian men’s team rekindled a lost spark, winning an Olympic medal for the first time in more than four decades. The women’s team ended in fourth place, in a finish that won as many hearts as it broke.
The two teams have played inconsistently since, amid numerous changes in the coaching line-up, in developments that sadly remain par for the course for the sport in India.
The men booked their spot in Paris with an Asian Games gold; the women have not booked a slot yet but still might.
And, finally, there is PV Sindhu. The only Indian woman with multiple Olympic medals, the 28-year-old badminton star is in the midst of a slightly extended lull. Injuries, a dip in confidence and form, and deviation in playing style have all meant that the Sindhu we’ve seen of late isn’t the Sindhu we’ve known. Could a timely resurgence be in store for the silver medallist at Rio 2016 and bronze medallist in Tokyo?
A hat-trick of Olympic medals would certainly be consistent with her narrative so far. And it could help India break into the double-digits with its final medal tally. Which could kick things into a whole new gear within the country’s growing athletics and Olympics movements — and add to the enthusiasm of finally bidding to host a Games. Ahmedabad 2036? It may not happen, but don’t rule it out.
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