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In less than a month, the highly anticipated 2024 Paris Olympics will commence in the heart of the French capital.
Who are these athletes? Let's explore the Indian contenders who will not be participating in the Summer Games and their respective reasons:
Tokyo Olympian and gymnast Pranati Nayak's dream of representing her nation at the 2024 Paris Olympics was dashed when she couldn’t secure a spot through the FIG Apparatus World Cup 2024 series, which served as qualifying events for the Olympics.
Returning to compete in the Baku leg, Pranati faced challenges, finishing in 9th place. Her efforts in the Doha leg also fell short, as she failed to qualify for the final, ending 11th in the qualifying round.
Tokyo Olympics silver medalist wrestler Ravi Dahiya's dreams of competing in the Paris Olympics were abruptly halted in May when the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) decided not to hold a final trial. Instead, the WFI confirmed that the six wrestlers who secured a quota by winning the earlier trials in March 2024 would represent India.
This shift left her without a spot in the Games, as she was edged out by Preeti Pawar, who secured a place on the Hangzhou 2023 squad and subsequently for the Olympics..
Pugilist Parveen Hooda, who won a bronze medal at the 2022 World Championships and secured an Olympic quota in the 57kg category through an Asian Games bronze last year, failed to comply with WADA rules by not reporting her whereabouts from April 2022 to March 2023.
"Parveen Hooda has been suspended for 22 months by the International Testing Agency (ITA) for Whereabouts Failures," the Boxing Federation of India said in a media release.
Long jumper M. Sreeshankar, a silver medallist at the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games, was compelled to withdraw from competition for the entire season, including the Paris 2024 Olympics, due to a knee injury sustained during training.
The six-member Indian fencing team, led by Tokyo Olympian Bhavani Devi failed to secure any Paris 2024 Olympics quotas at the Asia Oceania Zonal Qualifiers held in Fujairah, UAE.
She advanced to the quarter-finals with a 15-8 victory over Juliet Jie Min Heng of Singapore but fell short in the semi-finals, losing 15-12 to Chu Wing Kiu of Hong Kong China. Only the winners of each event earned Olympic quotas for their respective countries.
Then ranked 18th in the latest ITTF mixed doubles world rankings, the Indian duo suffered a 4-1 defeat (11-9, 11-9, 11-9, 7-11, 11-8) in the quarter-finals against Malaysia's Javen Choong and Karen Lyne. Batra and Sathiyan had received a bye in the round of 16 of their knockout bracket.
Following their historic fourth-place finish at the Tokyo Olympics, the Indian women’s hockey team faced disappointment when their dreams of qualifying for the Paris Olympics were dashed.
India participated with two teams, A and B, in the mixed 400m relay event, which also included invited teams from Sri Lanka and Maldives as per the Athletics Federation of India (AFI)'s arrangement to ensure their timings counted for world ranking purposes.
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