Tokyo Olympics, 50 Days to go: A timeline of India's proudest moments

India has won 28 medals at the Olympic Games since the 1900 edition with the hockey team alone contributing eight gold medals, one silver and two bronze medals.

Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore with his silver medal during the 2004 Olympics in Athens. - REUTERS

With 50 days to go before the Olympics begin in Tokyo - if it were to go ahead as scheduled, we retrace our medal journey in the quadrennial Summer Games.

India has won 28 medals at the Olympic Games since the 1900 edition with the hockey team alone contributing eight gold medals, one silver and two bronze medals.

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A timeline of the country's proudest moments :

1900: -Norman Pritchard became the first athlete from British India to win a medal. He collected two silver medals in the 200m and 200m hurdles at the 1900 Paris Olympics.

1928-1956 - India won six consecutive gold medals at the Olympics from 1928 till 1956. The team won a silver in 1960 before clinching the gold again in 1964. After a slump saw the team settling for bronze in 1968 and 1972, it slipped to seventh in the 1976 Montreal Olympics. The team salvaged pride being winning a gold medal in the 1980 Moscow Olympics to take its gold tally to eight in hockey. India has not won a medal since then.

1952 - K. D. Jadhav was the first Olympic medallist of independent India. He won the bronze in Wrestling at the Summer Olympics in Finland.

 

1996 - Leander Paes ended India's medal draught in individual events by winning the men's singles bronze at the Atlanta Olympics. He is the only tennis player to have participated at seven successive Olympic games (1992-2016).

2000 - Karnam Malleswari was the first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal at the Sydney Olympics. She is the only weightlifter to have won a medal for India.

2004 - Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore won a double trap silver at the Athens Olympics. It was India's first silver medal in an individual event after independence.

2008 - India tasted its first individual Olympic gold when Abhinav Bindra shot a perfect 10.8 in his last attempt to clinch the top spot in the men's 10m air rifle event at the Beijing Olympics. It remains India's only individual Olympic gold. 

Sushil Kumar added to India's tally with a bronze in the 66kg freestyle wrestling before Vijender Singh gave India its first boxing bronze medal in the middleweight category.

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2012 -  India had its best ever showing at the 2012 London Olympics, winning two silver medals and four bronze - all in individual events.

Yogeshwar Dutt with his bronze medal at the Olympics in London, in 2012. - REUTERS

 

Wrestler Sushil Kumar became the first Indian to bag multiple individual Olympic medals by bettering his Beijing performance with a silver in London. Armyman Vijay Kumar emulated Rathore by clinching a  silver medal in the 25m rapid fire pistol shooting event. 

While Saina Nehwal became the first badminton player to win a medal by taking the women's singles bronze, Mary Kom became the first woman to win an individual bronze in boxing (51kg).

Yogeshwar Dutt (60kg freestyle) and Gagan Narang (10m air rifle) won bronze medals to boost India't tally.

2016 - P. V. Sindhu became the first Indian badminton player to reach the finals of an Olympic game and became the first Indian woman to win a silver medal. She is also the youngest Indian Olympic medalist ( 21 years) .

Sakshi Malik became the first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal in wrestling (58 kg freestyle).