The recently concluded Olympics was India’s most successful in terms of medals won as we finished with seven medals.
With a gold, two silvers and four bronze medals, India finished 48th overall in the medals tally this time around – among its best performance in recent decades. While India has finished higher in the overall table in a number of past editions, this was the country’s best performance in terms of total number of medals won. The seven medals were won across six different sporting categories.
1. Mirabai Chanu Silver in women’s 49 kg weightlifting
India won a medal on day one of an Olympic Games for the first time ever thanks to Mirabai Chanu. Having failed in Rio on her Olympic debut, Chanu scripted a remarkable comeback by winning silver at Tokyo.
Entering the event as one of the top weightlifters in the category and a genuine medal contender, Chanu didn’t disappoint. With an 87 kg lift in snatch and a 115 kg lift in the clean and jerk section, Chanu finished with a total of 202 kg, only behind China’s Hou Zhihui, who went on an Olympic record-smashing spree in the final.
2. Bronze in women’s singles badminton
While Sindhu couldn’t better her silver from Rio, she did become the first Indian woman to win multiple Olympic medals with her bronze at Tokyo. This also makes her just the second Indian, male or female, to medal twice at the Olympics in individual events.
3. Lovlina Borgohain Bronze in women’s welterweight boxing
Making her Olympics debut at Tokyo, the 23-year-old Borgohain won bronze in the women’s welterweight category. She ensured bronze by defeating Chen Nien-Chin in the quarter-finals, but couldn’t progress to the final as she lost to eventual gold medallist Busenaz Surmeneli of Turkey in the semis.
4. Men’s hockey team Bronze
India might have the best record in Olympics in men’s hockey, but we had gone without a medal for four decades since winning gold in 1980. That wait finally came to an end at Tokyo as the men’s team played some remarkable hockey. Even though India went down 5-2 against eventual champions Belgium in the semis, they produced a thrilling 5-4 win against Germany in the bronze medal play-off.
5. Ravi Kumar Dahiya silver in men’s 57 kg wrestling
Trailing 2-9 with 90 seconds left in his semi-final against Kazakhstan’s Nurislam Sanayev, Ravi Kumar Dahiya did the unthinkable by scripting a remarkable turnaround. He first closed the gap before going on to pin Sanayev to ensure his passage to the final of the men’s 57 kg wrestling. Dahiya went down against ROC’s (Russia) Zavur Uguev in the final, but his performance was still good enough to clinch silver on his Olympic debut.
6. Bronze in men’s 65 kg wrestling
Bajrang was a genuine medal contender at Tokyo in his weight category as he has three world championship medals under his belt. Bajrang, however, lost in the semi-finals against Azerbaijan’s Haji Aliyev. He was at his dominant best during the bronze medal play-off in the second day of his competition, defeating Kazakhstan’s Daulet Niyazbekov 8-0.
7. Gold in men’s javelin throw
India saved its best for the last as Neeraj Chopra, who had also topped qualification, won a coveted athletics gold medal with a best of 87.58 m in his second throw. The 23-year-old, in fact, led throughout the finals as his first throw of 87.03 m was better than the 86.67 m that fetched silver for Czech Republic’s Jakub Vadlejch. With that, Chopra became just the second individual gold medallist for India after Abhinav Bindra (2008).
Picture Credit : Google
