Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games

India’s highest medal tally ever : One gold, four Silver and two bronze medals

Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games

India’s highest medal tally ever: Five gold, eight Silver and six bronze medals.

Tokyo 2020 – Olympic and Paralympic Games – will go down in the annals of Indian sports as a year of consolidation of gains this liberal democracy has made over decades of its participation in these global mega sporting events.

Not many would remember, 2018 was the watershed year. It was at Buenos Aires in the Youth Olympic Games that India started sending out signals of its emergence as a new power in sports.

India ended 14th on the medals tally with three gold, nine Silver and one bronze medal. It was perhaps the first global event conducted under the banner of the International Olympic Committee that India finished a select band of nations with 10 or more medals.

Since then, India has not looked back.

It was “lucky” 13 of Buenos Aires that has provided a new dynamic direction to Indian sports. The Youth Olympic Games not only provide a record number of medals but also projected on the global horizon many new faces.

 It was at Buenos Aires that projected young shooters Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Chaudhary. Both were gold medal winners. Indian hockey teams, both men and women, ended with silver medals. Vivek Sagar Prasad and Lalremsiami were members of silver medalist Indian men and women Hockey5 teams that were subsequently inducted into Olympic teams. The medals trail set in motion at Buenos Aires climaxed at Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games where India got its first ever medal, a Gold, in track and field besides returning to the victory podium in men’s hockey after a gap of 41 years.

The gains were further consolidated at Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games where India finished 24th with 19 medals, including five gold. Beginning with Buenos Aires, all the IOC events – Youth Olympic Games, Olympic Games and Paralympic Games – have shown India’s firm climb up the medals ladder.

The medal winning performances, mostly in individual events, have been acting as a catalyst for aspiring players to take to sports as a career.

Neeraj Chopra (Javelin throw, Tokyo 2020 Olympics), Sumit (Javelin throw in F64 category of Paralympics), Krishna Nagar (Badminton, SH category), Pramod Bhagat (Badminton, SL 3 category), Manish Narwal (Shooting, Mixed 50 m, SH1 category), and Avani Lekhara (Shooting, SH 1, 10 m Air Pistol) have emerged as the new icons of Indian sports for winning gold medals in Olympics or Paralympic Games.

Shooters Singhraj Adrana and Avani Lekhara won two medals each in Paralympics. Besides a Badminton coach, Pramod Bhagat, a District Magistrate of NOIDA, Suhas Yathiraj, too gave India medals in Badminton. While Bhagat won a gold, Yathiraj lost the gold medal to his French rival to end with a Silver.

For Avani Lekhara, it was a gold and a bronze. She became the first women shooter to win a medal in the Olympics or Paralympics. Likewise, Harvinder Singh of Kaithal had the distinction of winning the country’s first medal in archery in the Paralympics or Olympics.

It may sound as an exaggeration that finally Indian sports have come of an age and the country has been successful to an extent of creating sports temperament. Sports is now being accepted as a respectable profession.

India’s progress in some sports and games, especially Badminton, Boxing, Golf, Shooting, Track and Field, Table Tennis, Tennis and Wrestling has been noticeable.

In team sports, hockey remains the top choice.