India at Tokyo Olympics 2020: A new rising?

Next year, this time around we will be analysing the Olympics performance of different countries. USA and China are the sports super powers. 

India stands nowhere in sports compare to these countries. Improvement is definitely there, but India has to cover miles to leave their footprints in the sporting world. 

We are not yet sure of the number of medals and what their colour would be if we won few. Why so much uncertainty? We have to answer these. This new series on www.sportco.io will put light on our Olympics preparation and our athletes. Let us begin the Series. 

Number of medals depends upon number of champion athletes we have in our contingent. Let’s analyse if we can expect one gold medal. 

But here you will see that India have number one and world record holders in shooting only (Barring Bajrang Punia in wrestling) and shooting is a very unpredictable sport. So that is why no one is sure of the number of medals India can win. 

But there is a proverb “Well Begun is Half Done”. So if on day one India goes on to win a medal in 10 metre Air Pistol, I am sure India will be able to get around 10 medals. In 2016 Rio Olympics Jitu Rai, the best medal hope for India that time, finished 6th in the finals of 10 mtr Air Pistol. 

That was a huge disappointment for India as he was a world champion. Had he won a medal India’s medal tally would have been very different at Rio. But ifs and buts stand nowhere in life. 

Track & Field and Swimming are the events with most number of medals in Olympics. But India never performed well in these events in Olympics. 

In Swimming Virdhawal Khade, Sajan Prakash and Sandeep Sejwal are the few notable swimmers from India. But they have to break National records to achieve Olympic Qualifying Time (OQT). 

There is no chance of medal but if any Indian swimmer achieved OQT it will be a big moment for Indian swimming. At present it looks like at best we may get few quotas in swimming with Olympics Standard Time (OST) or by invitation. 

Irfan Thodi is the only athlete to qualify in 20KM walk in athletics event till date. As on this day in athletics events no Indian is near his or her personal best to even qualify for the Olympics. 

Winning a medal is a distant thing. We have two world class athletes in the form of Hima Das and Neeraj Chopra. Hima Das has recovered from Injury and started her preparations for Olympics by participating in some events. 

Neeraj has yet to recover from Injury and we can hope within a month or two that he would be back on the field. Let’s hope they achieve their personal best at the earliest to qualify for the Olympics. 

So in Athletics we have outside chance of a medal if Neeraj or Hima performs exceptionally. Winning a bronze will be a great achievement for Indian athletics. 

Tejinder Pal Singh Toor, Dutee Chand, Manpreet Kaur, Mohammad Anas, Dharun Ayyasamy and Jinson Johnson are the few notable names in Indian athletics. 

They had won medals at Asian games. But to qualify for Olympics they need to outperform themselves. If anyone of them will reach finals of their respective events it will be an achievement for Indian athletics. 

To Be Continued......