The 2024 Summer Olympics, better known as Paris Olympics 2024 has now come to an end. The multi-national sport events took place from 26th July, 2024 to 11th August, 2024. A total number of 206 National Olympic Committees and IOC Refugee Olympic Team were participating at the Paris Olympics 2024. It featured 10,714 athletes from these regions competing in 329 events in 32 sports (48 disciplines). Indian athletes won one silver medal and five bronze medals. Let’s have a look at all the six medals won by Indian athletes at the Paris Olympics 2024.
Silver Medal
26 years-old Indian athlete Neeraj Chopra brought a silver medal home. Neeraj Chopra was competing in Men’s Javelin Throw. He was one of the athletes from which Indians had high expectations that he will bring the gold medal home. But this willingness of Neeraj and the Indians went null. Pakistani athlete Arshad Nadeem won the gold medal for Men’s Javelin Throw and also broke the previous record of farthest Olympic Javelin Throw. Neeraj manged to throw at the distance of 89.45m while Arshad threw at the distance of 92.97m. What surprised the netizens was Neeraj and Arshad’s mothers calling their son’s competitor ‘like their son.’ They also wished their son’s competitors good-luck for future endeavours.
Bronze Medals
Manu Bhaker was the first Indian athlete to bag a medal for the country. The 22 years-old Manu won a bronze medal in Women’s 10m air pistol shooting. Not just one bronze medal, but Manu Bhaker became the first Indian athlete in winning two medals at the same Olympic event. After Women’s 10m air pistol shooting, Manu also won a bronze medal along with Sarabjot Singh in Mixed 10m air pistol shooting. The duo did an excellent job at shooting and acquiring medals for India.
Swapnil Kusale is a 29-year-old Indian that acquired a bronze medal in Men’s 50m Rifle Three Positions. Swapnil’s win in this category made India bag three bronze medal in total for the shooting sport at the Paris Olympics.
Indian Men’s Hockey Team also were successful in acquiring a bronze medal for the country. The captain of the team was Harmanpreet Singh and the goalkeeper was PR Sreejesh. The goalkeeper – PR Sreejesh, also known as ‘The Wall,’ announced his retirement from international hockey matches.
Aman Sehrawat became the youngest Indian athlete to win a medal at the Olympics. He was just 21 years, 0 months and 24 days old when he won a bronze medal in Men’s Freestyle 57kg. Reportedly, Aman Sehrawat lost 4.6kgs from his weight in 10 hours before competing in the match as he was overweight for the match.
Cruel Fate
Many Indian athletes’ dream of acquiring a medal for the country was shattered when they were either disqualified or a victim of confusing scoring system. Nishant Dev, an Indian boxer was robbed off a medal due to the scoring system. Former Indian boxer and an Olympic bronze medal winner Vijendra Singh also criticised the scoring system which led to him being out of the game. Indian female wrestler, Vinesh Phogat was disqualified from silver medal match in 50kg female freestyle wrestling due to being 100gm overweight. Indian badminton men player Lakshya Sen, Indian woman weightlifter Mirabai Chanu and Indian women shooting athlete Manu Bhaker missed a bit to acquire their medals.