So, that’s all folks! Team India is returning home with 1 Silver and 5 Bronze medals from the 2024 Paris Olympics – one short of our best-ever haul at 2020 Tokyo Olympics and on par with the six medals we won in London in 2012.
But some young sports fans are likely to be disappointed that our contingent of 117 athletes – many of whom are now familiar names and faces on TV screens and on social media – couldn't do better. But the key word is 'young'. Older fans, like me, will tell you that we have spent decades being satisfied with a lot less.
From 1969, the year I was born, till 2004, India won a grand total of five Olympic medals. Only five in 35 years! And so, six medals in two weeks can impress a grizzly greying bear like me.
Paris 2024 – So Many ‘What-Ifs’
And yet, I get the disappointment. Surely, our badminton doubles pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwik Rankireddy was a medal certainty. Surely, Neeraj Chopra was a shoo-in for a consecutive javelin Gold.
Ughh, why did Lakshya Sen choke when he had defending champ Axelsen on the ropes, and again after crushing Lee Jia Zii in the first game of the Bronze medal match? Why did Manu Bhaker end up fourth in her favoured shooting event? If only Mirabai Chanu had lifted those 114 kgs in her final Clean and Jerk lift and added a Bronze to her Silver in Tokyo.
And the biggest if of all – if only, somehow, Vinesh Phogat had managed to lose those 100 grams before her second-day weigh-in, it would have assured her of a Silver medal later that evening. And who knows, since she was in the form of her life, having shocked the Japanese top seed a day earlier, she may even have won Gold.
But that’s the beauty of the Olympics, where after fanatical preparation, the finest athletes of over 200 countries, slug it out for the ultimate recognition – an Olympic medal.
The difference between winning and missing a medal can be so incredibly narrow – a millimeter on a shooting target, a millisecond on the track, or just a kilo in a lift. In the end, you cannot have a winner, without someone missing out.
But Gen Z would cut through the rhetoric and ask a grizzly grey guy like me – "Why do the Americans and Chinese do most of the winning, and why do we Indians do the ‘missing out’?" And they would have a point. While USA has won over 100 medals just in Paris, India has won a total of 41 medals in 33 Olympics over 130 years.
Hey, Let’s Look at Some ‘Feel Good’ Numbers
Well, let me try to paint a slightly different picture.
First, let’s return to the numbers – and recognise that things have gotten better. Out of India’s total of 41 medals since 1896, 24 have come in just the last 16 years. So, clearly, since Beijing in 2008, our medal winning ability has gone up, and stayed up. A lot like climate change (bad analogy but always worth a reminder).
In fact, we would have overtaken our biggest haul of seven medals at Tokyo if it wasn’t for the unusually high number of ‘almost medals’ we had in Paris. Nine athletes came tantalisingly close to winning a medal.
Archers Dhiraj Bommadevara and Ankita Bhakat lost their Mixed Team Bronze medal match against USA.
Lakshya Sen finished fourth, losing his Men’s Singles badminton Bronze medal match.
In Boxing, Nishant Dev and Lovlina Borgohain lost their quarter-final bouts.
In Shooting, we had three fourth place finishes – Arjun Babuta (10m Air Rifle), Manu Bhaker (25m Pistol), and Maheshwari Chauhan with AJS Naruka (Mixed Skeet Team).
Mirabai Chanu also finished fourth in her 49kg Weightlifting event by a single kilo.
And of course, Vinesh missed her assured Silver medal by those infamous 100 grams.
So, we had a total of nine genuine really ‘near-misses’. Had we had won them all, India’s haul would have been a neat 15 medals. And do you know how many countries won more than 15 medals in Paris? Just 14. Which shows how close we were to doing pretty well in Paris. Suddenly a lot more respectable, yeah?
Medal Tally Hides our ‘Depth and Width’ of Talent
It's also worth remembering that the formal Olympic medal tally table is unkind to countries that don’t win Gold medals. Countries with even a single Gold medal rank higher than those with more medals. And a nation with even a single Silver medal ranks higher than a country with more Bronze medals. That’s why India, despite its six medals, is at #71.
Around 31 countries that have won fewer medals than India are ranked higher. Which includes Pakistan, who now have that lone Arshad Nadeem Gold in their coffers.
But surely, Pakistan with just 11 Olympic medals, of which eight came long ago, in Hockey, compares poorly with India. So, the medal tally table, often doesn’t tell the full story of a country’s Olympic ability.
A larger number of medals won often suggests a greater depth of sporting talent. And the fact is India is acquiring that ‘depth’. For instance, our three medals in Shooting show that we now have several world-class shooters, making us a force to reckon with at top Shooting events.
A larger medal haul also points to a greater ‘width’ of sporting talent – that a country is winning medals across a broader range of sports. That too should matter, isn’t it? We’re winning medals in Shooting, Wrestling, Athletics and Hockey, and are a significant presence in sports like Archery, Badminton, Table Tennis, Tennis, Weightlifting, Boxing, and more. Earlier we were a one-trick pony, with Hockey as our only medal winning sport.
For equally strong evidence of ‘depth’ and ‘width’, do also glance at India’s rising medal tally at the Asian Games. From 57 medals in the 2014 Incheon games, we practically doubled our tally to 106 at Hangzhou in 2022.
Let's Now Talk Hockey, Cricket and Chess
Team sports can be thankless in terms of medals. The Olympics are heavily skewed in favour of individual events when it comes to medals. So, while Katie Ledecky of USA is undeniably a freestyle swimming legend, she comes away from Paris with 2 Golds, 1 Silver and 1 Bronze, because there are more medal events available to her.
But India’s Hockey team has only one medal to fight for. Our incredible captain Harmanpreet Singh may well be the top goal scorer of the Olympics with 10 goals, but sorry, there’s no medal for that.
So, let’s give a lot of weightage to that single Hockey Bronze that we have won. It is worth a lot more.
Ever since India won the last of its Hockey Golds in 1980, the sport has become more competitive, with many more countries excelling in the game. How many of us know that Argentina won the Hockey Gold in 2016?
Let's also acknowledge Team India’s achievement of winning back-to-back medals. Not only does it show that India is back among the top Hockey nations, but it is also holding on to its top billing well. Belgium and Australia, who won the Gold and Silver respectively in Tokyo, could not win a medal in Paris. So, big respect to Harmanpreet, the awesome Sreejesh, and the rest of that brilliant team!
Talking of team events, let's also talk Cricket.
If skateboarding can be an Olympic sport, why not Cricket? Why has it been kept out all these years?
This will change in Los Angeles in 2028 when T20 Cricket will be an event for men and women. So, hopefully, that’s two medals booked for India.
There's another sport that India excels in but is kept out of Olympics – Chess. Any top Chess player will tell you how physically demanding the game is. It’s not all brains.
This April, at the Candidates tournament to determine who would challenge World Champion Ding Liren later in the year, of the eight ‘candidates’, three were Indians. And who won? An Indian – Gukesh D.
So, if anyone has a conspiracy theory about why Cricket and Chess are kept out of the Olympics, let me just say – I’m listening.
Umm… Some Expectation ‘Management’ Needed
Let’s also talk about expectations. Understandably, with every improving performance, our expectations from our athletes are rising. And in India, that’s 1.4 billion expectations.
Neeraj Chopra missing his Javelin Gold was a downer, but the fact is that he won a Gold and a Silver medal in back-to-back Olympics. That is rare. He is the first and only Indian athlete to have ever done this.
I can tell you that Milkha Singh and PT Usha would have celebrated this – both legends who never won a single Olympic medal.
Similarly, even as we are miserable that Manu Bhaker missed her third Bronze medal, the fact is – she won 2 Bronze medals in the same Olympics. That again, is a first, and a huge first.
Again, to be celebrated. And remember, she is just 22. It’s highly probable that she will add to her individual haul in Los Angeles four years from now.
So, let’s do some expectation management as well, and see the proverbial glass as half-full – and not half-empty.
Also remember, India, unlike some countries, does not 'shop' for talent. There's no provision of offering speedily approved citizenship and a good life to African or Chinese talent to raise their medal tally.
Bahrain, for instance, has won seven Olympic medals in its history, including a Gold in Paris in the 3000m Steeplechase for women by Winfred Yavi. At least six of these medals have been won by former African athletes.
Kenyan-born Yavi shifted ‘allegiance’ to Bahrain when she was 15 – and was soon winning medals for her new country. Someone may want to ask countries like Kenya, Ethiopia, and Uganda how they feel about this. Yavi’s Gold for Bahrain meant that Uganda and Kenya had to settle for Silver and Bronze, respectively. Uganda has just 13 hard-earned Olympic medals in its history.
Is it fair for Uganda to miss out on a Gold, because Bahrain can ‘shop’ for sporting talent and Uganda cannot?
Countries like Qatar, the UAE, and Turkey have also similarly ‘recruited’ African-born runners, and won medals off their performances. Australia, Japan and Canada have ‘imported’ Chinese table-tennis players, fast-tracked their citizenship, and drafted them into their national teams, hoping to push up their medal tallies.
Legendary athlete, and now President of World Athletics, Sebastian Coe, has called out this ‘enlistment’ of athletes by richer countries, and equated it with human trafficking.
The point I am making is that India, with its massive economic heft, could do the same to boost its medal count. Thankfully we haven’t.
Agli Baar, 15 Paar!
Certainly, there’s a lot India must still do to fare better at the Olympics. We need to clean up the administration of many of our sports. They are still run like personal fiefdoms by politicians, who are simply not held accountable. We hardly need to recount the mess that Indian Wrestling has been in, with the erstwhile federation chief Brij Bhushan Singh facing multiple charges of sexual assault from his own wrestlers.
We need to become better at spotting, supporting, and training sporting talent at a really young age. We need to assure hesitant parents that their children will be fully supported through school, college, and into their careers if they commit to sports.
We are now taking aspects like mental health, nutrition, sports medicine, and overall fitness far more seriously. Professional sports management for athletes has now become the norm rather than be the exception. We are embracing foreign coaching talent where needed. We are funding months, even years, of specialised training abroad and at home for our top talent. We are celebrating their successes and ensuring that they become household names with Indian fans on par with the cricket idols.
So folks, agli baar, 15 medals paar!
(This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)