Yearender: India's bittersweet voyage at Paris Olympics, marked by landmark medals and heartbreaking 4th place finishes - World News Network

New Delhi [India], December 31 (ANI): The Paris Olympics was a bittersweet voyage for the Indian contingent after failing to clinch a single gold medal at the recently concluded Summer Games. However, it was the year of Manu Bhaker, who gained fame following her double Olympic medals.
Team India finished their Paris Olympics campaign with six medals which included one silver and five bronze medals. Even after sending a total of 117 athletes to compete in different events at the marquee event, Team India failed to bag a single gold.
India finished in the 71st place on the Paris Olympics medals tally, while, the United States of America ended in top place with a total of 126 medals.
The highlight of the recently concluded Paris Olympics was the rise of shooter Manu Bhaker. The 22-year-old became the first Indian athlete in the post-independence era to win two medals in a single edition of the Olympics. This distinction was previously held by Norman Pritchard at the Paris 1900 Games.
Manu Bhaker opened India’s medal tally in the Olympics after she secured third place in the women’s individual 10m air pistol event, becoming the first-ever woman shooter to win an Olympic medal for India.
Following that, Sarabjot Singh and Bhaker won the bronze medal in the 10m air pistol (mixed team) event, which was India’s first-ever shooting team medal.
In her final event, Bhaker narrowly missed out on the historic grand treble and finished fourth in the women’s 25m pistol shooting event. She missed out on the opportunity to become the first Indian to win three medals at the Olympics.
Swapnil Kusale clinched a bronze medal for India in the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Men’s Final after finishing in third place with an aggregate of 451.4. He became the first Indian shooter to win a medal in the men’s 50m rifle 3P event.
The ‘golden boy’ shined for India yet again at the Paris Olympics. Neeraj Chopra fell short of retaining his gold medal in the men’s javelin throw at the ongoing marquee event securing silver with a best throw of 89.45 meters. Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem won gold with a throw of 92.97 meters, setting a new Olympic record and surpassing Denmark’s Andreas Thorkildsen’s mark from Beijing 2008. Grenada’s Anderson Peters secured bronze with a throw of 88.54 meters.
Meanwhile, the Indian men’s hockey team etched their names into the history book after securing back-to-back bronze medals at the Olympics for the first time in 52 years.
Led by Harmanpreet Singh, the Indian men’s hockey team won back-to-back bronze medals for the first time in 52 years at the Olympics following their 2-1 triumph over Spain.
India won consecutive bronze hockey medals for the first time in 52 years, since the 1972 Munich Games.
At the end stage of the Paris Olympics on August 9, Indian young wrestler Aman Sehrawat defeated Puerto Rico’s Darian Cruz to clinch the bronze medal in the 57 kg freestyle wrestling event at the 2024 Summer Games.
Aman brought India’s first wrestling medal at the Paris 2024 in his debut Olympic Games. He became the 7th Indian wrestler to medal at the Olympics.
Despite these achievements, India faced significant disappointments in Paris 2024. The nation narrowly missed out on six potential medals, with athletes finishing fourth in their events, including Lakshya Sen, Mirabai Chanu, and Manu Bhaker, who was close to securing a third medal. Also, the mixed team archery duo of Dhiraj Bommadevara and Ankita Bhakat could not win a medal for India, losing the bronze medal match. But the archers made history by becoming the first archers from India to reach an Olympic medal match.
Some other setbacks for India included, the star pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty missing out on a medal despite being in fine form, crashing out in the semifinals of men’s doubles badminton. Also, PV Sindhu failed to make it a hat-trick of medals at three successive Olympics.
The veteran archer and multi-time Olympian Deepika Kumari failed to return home with a medal despite an immense level of experience and success at non-Olympic events. Boxers Nikhat Zareen and Lovlina Borgohain, the latter being Tokyo 2020 bronze medalists, could not get the country some highly-anticipated medals.
Vinesh Phogat’s disqualification just before a historic final of women’s 50 kg also contributed to the nation’s woes.
There was Indian interest in a total of 69 medal events across 16 sports at the 2024 Summer Games: archery, athletics, badminton, boxing, equestrian, golf, hockey, judo, rowing, sailing, shooting, swimming, table tennis and tennis.
India has won 41 medals at the Olympics to date. Interestingly, it was Norman Pritchard’s dual silver that opened India’s account in the 1900 Olympics, which were also held in Paris. KD Jadhav was the first individual athlete from independent India to get on the Olympic medal winners list. He won a bronze medal in wrestling at the 1952 Olympics, held in Helsinki. Weightlifter Karnam Malleswari became the first woman to win an Olympic medal in Sydney in 2000.
India’s best-ever Olympic performance came at Tokyo 2020, where the nation won seven medals, including one gold. (ANI)

Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed of ANI; only the image & headline may have been reworked by News Services Division of World News Network Inc Ltd and Palghar News and Pune News and World News