India's Medal Prospects At The Long-Awaited Tokyo Olympics

Delayed and nearly derailed by covid, the Tokyo games are finally on. A look at india’s preparations and medal prospects

- Suhani Singh

Once every four years, 1.3 billion Indians take their eyes off cricket and invest their faith in athletes who go about their sporting business in quiet glory. There is a fond hope that they’ll bring home a medal. As boxer Pooja Rani says, “Everyone is like ‘Abhi bas Olympic mein medal le aa (Just get a medal in the Olympics)’. Like medals are just being handed around. Few know the hard work it entails.” Just to qualify for the Olympics, an athlete has distances to clear, timings to go under and rankings to attain. For that, one needs to compete in events. Most of them were cancelled in 2020 due to Covid-19. Mercifully, 16 months of uncertainty have yielded an unexpected result. India heads to Tokyo with its biggest-ever contingent—120 athletes—across 18 disciplines, from archery and fencing to swimming and equestrian. On them rides India’s hopes for glory at the world’s greatest sporting event.

For a while, though, it seemed the fate of the event would be hostage to the vagaries of a tiny virus. The Olympics have seen their share of disasters, including two world wars, which has led to their cancellation thrice—in 1916, 1940 and 1944. As country after country went into lockdown, the International Olympic Committee and the Japanese government postponed the Games by a year. Sportsper­ sons, anyway, had little access to training facilities. With their fitness levels compromised and no match practice, not many were equipped to compete at the highest level. Swimmer Sajan Prakash, for one, was glad the Games was postponed. Having recovered from a neck injury in March 2020, he could not get into a pool in Thailand until June. A year later, he swam his personal best in the 200m butterfly to qualify for his second consecutive Olympics.