Prakash Padukone’s matter-of-fact criticism of the performance of Indian athletes at the Olympics must be accepted gracefully
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When India won seven medals at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, many sports lovers across the country were happy. After all, it was our all-time best performance in the prestigious multi-sport event: one in which we were placed 48th on the medals tally, below Venezuela and above Hong Kong. India had sent a contingent of 119 athletes to Tokyo. Yet, seven medals in the 2020 event were enough to write a new chapter in the nation’s sporting history.
Hardly anything has changed this time. India has sent 117 athletes to Paris for the ongoing 2024 Summer Olympics. Shooters have won three bronze medals, Manu Bhaker having won one of them in the women’s 10m air pistol event and partnered with Sarabjot Singh to win another in the mixed 10m air pistol team event, and Swapnil Kusale having secured the third medal in the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions event. The worst news of the day is wrestler Vinesh Phoghat’s disqualification because she was found slightly overweight after she had entered the final of women’s 50kg category. There are other medal-winning possibilities though – Neeraj Chopra, for instance, has entered the javelin throw final, while the men’s hockey team will fight for the bronze – but nobody is hoping for a significant increase in the number of medals compared to Tokyo.