Shazneen Mistry
The Tokyo Olympics which was going to be held in 2020, in Japan, got delayed because of the unexpected COVID-19 breakout and as a result, the games were postponed and Tokyo Olympics took place on 23rd July 2021.
A contingent of 228 Indian athletes had taken fierce and long strides into the Tokyo Games to better its tally of one silver and one bronze from the previous Olympics in Rio. The country witnessed its strong and skilled contingent take part in 18 different sporting events.
The Olympics started with a bang for India when weightlifter Mirabai Chanu becoming the second individual to win a silver medal for the country in the Olympics. Later on, PV Sindhu won the bronze medal in badminton, Lovlina Borgohain won a bronze medal for boxing, Bajrang Punia won the bronze medal in wrestling. Indian men's hockey team also won a bronze medal. Wrestler Ravi Dahiya won the silver medal, while Neeraj Chopra ended the Olympic games and created history in the sports by being the first Indian to win a gold medal in the javelin throw.
While all players played well, some players gave their best but couldn’t win and this includes the archers and shooters like Saurabh Chaudhary, the shooter who dominated the qualification but could only finish seventh in the finals. Bhavani Devi, the first Indian fencer to qualify for the Olympics who lost to Manon Brunet, world no.3 fencer. Atanu Das, an archer, failed to qualify. Female archer Deepika Kumari, who was taking part in her third Olympics, lost in the quarter-final to eventual gold medallist An San of South Korea. India’s female hockey team too performed well and even competed for the bronze medal match but they ended up on the losing side. They earned plaudits for the fight that they showed throughout the tournament.
On the other hand, boxer Mary Kom was knocked out in the first round of what happened to be her final appearance at the Olympics. Team India cheerers and Mary Kom herself were very upset from this fight.
India ended up surpassing their previous best tally at an Olympics of six medals, which the contingent achieved at the 2012 London Olympics, with Neeraj's gold being their seventh medal. India finished 48th on the medal tally in Tokyo, its highest ranking in over four decades (if one were to go by the total number of medals, India would have finished 33rd).
In its 100-year-old Olympic journey, India has bagged 28 medals at the quadrennial event, both in the individual and team events, which include nine gold, seven silver, and 12 bronze medals.
Overall one can see that the Tokyo Olympic journey of all these players was quite wonderful. While some created history the others learned from their mistakes and promised to train harder and become even better so that they could represent India in the next Olympics in 2024, in Paris.
