With just one day left for the curtains to be rung down on the 33rd Olympic Games, it is time to take a dispassionate view of the show put up by India in Paris 2024.
The country’s contingent comprised 110 participants made up of 65 males and 46 females (plus seven alternates), 118 support staff and 22 officials.
The medal haul thus far from the Games has been one lone silver medal won by 2020 Olympic javelin champion Neeraj Chopra plus five bronze medals, three of them coming from the shooting range.
Pistol shooter Manu Bhaker provided the early spark on day two of the Games that commenced officially on July 26 by clinching the women’s 10 metre air pistol bronze medal.
She added to that tally two days later by teaming up with Sarabjot Singh and capturing the mixed pair team bronze in the same event.
Manu thus became the first from the country to win two bronze medals from the same edition of the Games.
Swapnil Kusale then shot his way to the men’s 50m rifle three-position bronze medal.
But other shooters came up empty. A total of 21 shooters had made it to the Games comprising 10 males and 11 females represented the country here and hauled in three bronze medals.
Four medalists out of 21 provided a 19 percent success rate in shooting.
Exactly one week after the shooting bronze by Kusale, August 1, provided India its best day of the Games, from the hockey turf and in the field event javelin throw of athletics.
The hockey squad had put up a brave show to get past Britain with ten men on the field for 43 minutes of regulation time following the red card shown to Amit Rohidas to enter the semifinals.
However, Harmanpreet Singh’s men came a cropper against Germany in the semifinals on August 6 before edging out Spain 3-2 in a thriller in the bronze medal match to finish third for the second successive Games.
Later that evening Chopra tried to defend his Tokyo Games javelin crown but one monstrous throw of 92.97m by arch rival Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan, who created a new Olympic record, blew away the Indian ace’s hopes of creating history.
However, he responded with a supreme effort and sealed up the silver medal with his second throw of 89.45m, his best for the season.
But the rest of the athletics squad numbering 27 (17 men and 10 women) were hopelessly outclassed by the competition.
Only men’s 3000m steeplechase runner Avinash Sable showed that he could at least compete at this level by advancing to the final where he finished 11th out of 16 in 8 minutes, 14.18 seconds.
Male wrestler Aman Sehrawat added to the meagre medals tally by clinching the men’s 57kg freestyle wrestling bronze.
The biggest disappointments came from the badminton court where P V Sindhu, a two-time medalist in former editions, failed to make a mark and men’s singles hope Lakshya Sen squandered leads in the semifinal and then the bronze medal match to finish fourth.
India drew a blank in archery, table tennis, boxing, weightlifting and tennis – disciplines where they were touted to have some reasonable chance.
The others, whose challenges expectedly sank without a trace, belonged to the disciplines of equestrian, golf, judo, rowing, sailing and swimming.
All in all, the display by India here is nothing to shout about, especially when seen in the background of the strong show from China, Korea and Japan.
China, in fact, is all set to finish either as number one or number two while Japan and Korea are expected to finish in the top ten.
India were 48th in Tokyo thanks to Chopra striking gold in men’s javelin, but with no Indian left here in gold medal contention, the country’s final standing will be much lower.