India In Olympics - Part 1 - Olympic Medal Winners From India So Far

Hello Sports Lovers,

Source

We are just 10 more days away from the Olympics events to start in Tokyo from July 23.

I just want to write few updates about medals won by India in Olympics, it's participation and it's medal hopes in the upcoming Olympics as a series of blogs with providing as much information as possible to relish those memories of wins by Indians starting from 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, the First Olympics with Indian participation.

India, the Asian country is known for it's rich culture, it's democracy and Indians have excelled in almost all the fields at the World stage whether it's education, software development, mathematics, chairing different Organizations, professional Sports events like Cricket, Tennis, Hockey, Chess and more.

But, when it comes to Olympics, India with current population of approximately 1.4 Billion, haven't been able to win many medals.

The reasons might be that, the global event of Olympics will have all the countries participating and there will be top athletes from each country and in many cases, there will be more than one athlete competing in the same category and that means, not many countries get to participate in many events.

When it comes to India, the sports into which it's sportsmen mainly qualified are quite countable and in most of the Sports, there won't be any Indians at all because of the high standards in qualification and as we know, Americans and Africans are the front runners in Individual sports because of their practice, physique and the coaching standards.

India officially started to participate in Olympics from 1928 in Amsterdam and to everyone's surprise, they won a Gold medal in Men's Hockey event, a feat they repeated in the next 2 Olympics held in 1932 and 1936 held at Los Angeles and Berlin respectively.

They kept winning Gold medals in Men's Hockey in other Olympics held in 1948-London, 1952-Helsinki and 1956-Melbourne Olympics and in between, India had it's First individual event medal when Khashaba Jadhav won a Bronze medal in wrestling in 1952 Helsinki Olympics, thus becoming the First Indian to win an individual medal in Olympics.

Indian Hockey team continued to win medals in further Olympics with a Silver in 1960 at Rome, a Gold in 1964 in Tokyo, then back to back Bronze medals in 1968 in Mexico City and in 1972 in Munich with another Gold after that in 1980 Moscow Olympics.

Then, all of a sudden, Indian Hockey team went out of the picture and haven't been able to win any medal whether it's Gold or Silver or even a Bronze medal and India have to wait until 1996 Atlanta Olympics to win a medal and that was in individual category, India's Second individual medal.

---

An Era of Individual Medals:

India won an individual medal in Tennis in 1996 Atlanta Olympics where Indian Tennis player Leander Paes won a Bronze medal in men's singles category, thus becoming the Second individual medal winner for India after Khashaba Jadhav way back in 1952.

Atlanta Olympics marked India's regularity in winning atleast a medal in all further Olympics.

---

In 2000 Sydney Olympics, weightlifter Karnam Malleshwari won a bronze medal in women's 69 KG category thus becoming First Indian woman to win a medal in Olympics

The tradition of winning atleast a medal in Olympics continued for India in the next 2 Olympics.

---

In 2004 Athens Olympics, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore won India's First medal in shooting when he won a Silver medal in men's double trap event.

---

In 2008 Beijing Olympics, India won 3 medals with a Gold and 2 Bronze.

While Abhinav Bindra bettered Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore's feet of a medal in shooting with that Gold in men's 10m Air Rifle competition, India won Bronze medals in each of Boxing and Wrestling and that started India's hopes of medals in those 2 events with Vijender Singh winning Bronze in middleweight Boxing and Sushil Kumar winning Bronze in men's freestyle wrestling in 66 KG category.

---

2012 London Olympics has been India's best bet in terms of total medals in a single Olympics as it won as many as 6 medals including a 2 Silver and 4 Bronze medals.

Vijay Kumar won a medal in shooting, Sushil Kumar bettered his own performance from previous Olympics to win a Silver in wrestling and there were Bronze for Mary Kom in women's boxing, Saina Nehwal in women's badminton singles, Gagan Narang in shooting and Yogeshwar Dutt in wrestling.

---

In the last edition held in Rio De Janeiro in 2018, India have to be content with just 2 medals with a Silver and a Bronze.

PV Sindhu bettered Saina Nehwal's feet of winning Bronze by winning a Silver medal in women's singles event of Badminton, Sakshi Malik won a medal in wrestling and that was a Olympics in which only women got medals for India.

Below is a list of medals in diferent Sports in which India has won the medals in the Olympics so far.

Source

India will be eager to improve their performance and Indian Government has started preparation for Tokyo Olympics long back, but pandemic CoVid 19 has definitely affected Indian sportsmen's plans and it has to be seen how they perform in this year's Olympics.

India's hopes will once again rest on sportsmen and sportswomen from Boxing, Shooting, Wrestling, Badminton, Archery and even a medal in Weightlifting as some of the younger sports persons have been impressive in these last few years and there are Billions hopes on these sports persons to improve India's medals tally.

---

I will be back with probably 1 or 2 more blogs with further details of India's Olympics journey in these remaining days.

Thanks for going thru this rather long blog and I hope I was able to provide some nice details about India's Olympic journey.

Thanks and Have a great day :)

Join the new Official Telegram for Splinterlands via link given below to participate in contests and have fun.

https://t.me/splinterlandsHQ

---

Not yet signed up for Splinterlands?

You can join using my referral link: splinterlands.io and get some monsters from me :)