It was a mixed bag of results for India at the Paris Olympics. India’s expectations may multiply manifold from one Games to the other, but the athletes were unable to keep pace with their performances. It appeared that bronze was the new gold so far as India at the Olympics goes as a haul of five bronze medals bolstered one silver medal.
India’s team of 117 athletes, with 140 support staff, did not return with even one gold medal from Paris, but that was because Neeraj Chopra, who had provided Indian sport with its finest breakthrough moment in Tokyo with the javelin gold, came off second best this time, beaten by his Pakistan friend Arshad Nadeem with an Olympic record throw of 92.97m.
India’s greatest hope in the 2024 Games for a repeat gold was undone on a day of five foul throws and one legitimate effort which was sufficient for Chopra to win the silver. Winning a medal in successive Olympics is a good performance, but heightened anticipation around the farmer’s son from Haryana was such it felt like Neeraj had fallen short of expectations.
The Indian hockey team kept its appointment with a medal, its second in a successive Olympics after a 41-year wait between Moscow 1980 and Tokyo 2020. This was again a creditable performance, more so because the team was desperately unlucky to see Germany convert a late chance fortuitously with Marco Miltkau’s stick in the right place at the right moment to deflect the ball into goal and relegate India to a bronze medal match against Spain.
The wrestler who exhibited raw courage in standing up publicly for the cause of sports women’s safety, Vinesh Phogat, was the tragic-heroic story of the Games, her tipping the scales at 100 grams over the 50-kgs limit denying her the opportunity to be on the mat in the final. She may have won millions of hearts for embellishing her career with a phenomenal effort just to get to the Olympics by choosing the lower weight category and becoming the first-ever Indian to qualify for a women's wrestling final.
It is the bandwidth of performers with a few young athletes winning medals that raises hopes of a brighter future for Indian sport. Shooter Manu Bhaker (22), who won two medals, making history along the way, and wrestler Aman Sehrawat (21), who won a bronze, are young athletes who made the most of the opportunity Paris presented.
Older athletes who participate in a second or third Olympics are achievers who stay on top of their game, but to expect them to win medals eight or 12 years after an Olympic debut is owed to sentiment more than current performance. As a world class javelin thrower, Neeraj Chopra is the sole exception for India, and he would still carry India’s hopes into Los Angeles in 2028.
One of the places that seems to get younger in this ageing world is sporting arenas brimming with young talent breaking through. Spotting them young and training them while enabling their participation in international competitions is the way forward. If India can do that without getting loud, hysterical or jingoistic about things that happen along the way, sport as well as Indian athletes would be better served.
