After the highs of Tokyo, the Indian contingent had flown to Paris with great expectations. The Indian Olympic Association president P.T. Usha had told this correspondent that India could even improve upon the seven medals it won in Tokyo.
That didn’t quite happen.
India, represented by 117 competitors, had to be content with six medals, one less than the tally from the last Olympics. With Neeraj Chopra being upstaged by Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem, India failed to win a single gold, which meant it could finish only 71st on the medals table.
If the ace athlete had bagged the men’s javelin gold, as he did in Tokyo, the country would have finished a lot higher. India was 48th at Tokyo, where it came up with its best Olympic show ever.
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India’s hopes were indeed mainly about Neeraj, the shooters, the men’s hockey players, the wrestlers and the shuttlers. Though badminton failed to give India a medal (for the first time in four Olympics), the shooters and the wrestlers did well. By winning the bronze, the men’s hockey team provided much joy.
It was not just in its strong events that India sent its athletes to Paris. There were also participants in less popular events.
In equestrian, for instance. Anush Agarwalla became the first ever Indian to take part in the dressage event at the Olympics.
The 24-year-old from Kolkata, who had won a gold and bronze at the Hangzhou Asian Games a couple of years ago, however, failed in his quest to make it to the medal round. He finished ninth in his pool of ten, scoring 66.444%. Only the top two were guaranteed to advance.
Deepika Kumari fared a lot better in archery. But the Olympics proved a disappointment yet again for the much-decorated archer from Jharkhand. For the second edition in a row, the 30-year-old’s campaign ended at the quarterfinal stage; she went down to South Korea’s Nam Suhyeon.
Not again: An Olympic medal continues to elude Deepika Kumari. | Photo Credit: Brynn Anderson/AP
Deepika has won a staggering number of medals in international events – the World Cup, the Asian Games, the Asian Championships, the Commonwealth Games and the World Championship. But, the Olympic medal continues to elude her.
Bhajan Kaur and Ankita Bhakat also took part in the women’s archery competitions in Paris. Bhajan made it to the round of 16, but Ankita was knocked out in the opening round.
The trio’s performance in the team event wasn’t satisfactory, either. They surrendered meekly in the quarterfinals to the Netherlands. The Indians had been seeded fourth, while the Dutch were seeded only 12th.
It was a similar story in the men’s event, too. The team comprising Dhiraj Bommadevara, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav was seeded third but beaten in the quarterfinals by sixth-seeded Turkey. In the individual competitions, Bommadevara reached the second round, while Tarundeep and Jadhav could not clear the first.
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Dhiraj and Bhakat came close to the podium in the mixed team event, though. They finished fourth, losing to Brady Ellison and Casey Kaufhold of the United States in the bronze-medal match.
There was heartbreak in tennis, too. In the opening round of the men’s singles, Sumit Nagal won the first set in his opening-round encounter against Frenchman Corentin Moutet, but he lost the second set and then the tie-breaker. The Indian doubles pair also found the French opposition daunting, Rohan Bopanna and Sriram Balaji going down to Gael Monfils and Edouard Roger-Vasselin in straight sets in the first round.
Tulika Maan also failed to go past the first round in judo. But not many expected to beat her opponent, Idalys Ortiz, the Cuban veteran who had arrived in Paris after winning a medal in each of her three previous Olympics.
The expectations were higher from Aditi Ashok, though. She had come close to winning a medal in golf at the last Olympics and her fourth place was one of the greatest Indian stories at Tokyo.
Aditi could only tie for 29th place at Le Golf National, where three other Indians were also in the fray. Diksha Dagar tied for the 49th place among women, while Shubhankar Sharma and Gaganjeet Bhullar tied for the 40th and 45th places in the men’s event.
Lone Man: Balraj Panwar could only finish 23rd in the repechage in men’s single sculls. | Photo Credit: EBRAHIM NOROOZI/AP
There was only one entry from India in rowing. Balraj Panwar was placed fourth in the heats of the men’s single sculls and made it to the quarterfinals through repechage. He, however, could only finish 23rd.
In sailing, India was represented by Vishnu Saravanan and Nethra Kumaran. Vishnu finished 18th in the men’s ILCA 7, while Nethra was placed 21st in the women’s ILCA 6.
In swimming too, India fielded a male and a female. Srihari Nataraj (men’s 100m backstroke) and Dhinidhi Desinghu (women’s 200m freestyle) were both knocked out after the heats at Paris La Defense Arena. The 14-year-old Dhinidhi, the youngest Indian competitor at Paris, had won her heat, but that wasn’t good enough: she was ranked 23rd among the 30 contestants.
Unlike swimming, India could boast of some tradition in weightlifting. Back in 2000, Karnam Malleswari had lifted the bronze in the women’s 69kg class in Sydney. She had thus become the first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal.
Four years later, at Athens, Kunjarani Devi had finished fourth in the women’s 48kg. At Tokyo in 2021, Mirabai Chanu won India its second medal in weightlifting, as she claimed silver in the women’s 49kg.
Mirabai couldn’t add another medal this time out as she finished fourth in Paris.
Finishing fourth, of course, proved to be a theme for India in Paris. The agony of it was experienced by the IOA president herself. Usha had missed a medal in the women’s 400m hurdles at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 by one-hundredth of a second.
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