India at Tokyo 2020 Olympics: From finalists to medallists, complete results of record contingent

India sent a record contingent to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, surpassing their mark from Rio 2016. While the initial contingent was tallied at 119 athletes, Sumit Nagal (tennis) and Diksha Dagar (golf) also made the cut late, making the contingent officially 121-member strong as per the International Olympic Committee.

It is worth noting that a squad of 16 was allowed for a hockey match but Indian teams also used two players from their reserves and a total of 18 players made appearances in the tournament. In athletics, some members of the original squad of 119 did not end up participating in any of the relay events. So the count of who represented India in various events stands approximately at 120-plus.

The Games started off with a bang for India, with a silver for weightlifter Mirabai Chanu on the first official day of action and finished with wrestler Bajrang Punia and javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra (with a gold, no less) pushing the country past their previous highest medal tally.

While the medal winners will be celebrated in the years to come, it is important to recognise and, at the very least, record the achievements of every athlete who went to the Olympics. One of the things you always hear associated with the Olympics is how participation at the Games is no mean feat, but it is especially more so in a year like 2021. The pandemic-delayed Games made things challenging in some way or the other for every athlete to took part.

Here, we take a look at the overall results from every event featuring an Indian athlete:

Tokyo 2020: Data check – India’s most successful Olympics campaign with seven medals

From Mirabai Chanu to Neeraj Chopra via PV Sindhu: India’s seven medals at Tokyo Olympics

Archery

Archery is one of the most exciting live events to watch at the Olympic Games and it sure produced stunning moments from the Indian athletes. Pravin Jadhav was arguably the find of the Games, finishing as the best male archer in the qualification and earning a shot at the mixed team event with Deepika Kumari. He was even more impressive in the men’s team event defeat against Korea, while going on to defeat the world No 2 archer in the individual event.

Atanu Das produced the moment of the archery campaign for India when he stunned Korean legend Oh Jinhyek in a shootoff.

At the end of it all, the wait for the first medal is still not over. Deepika Kumari, ranked world No 1, paid the price for being the ninth seed in qualification and ended up meeting the eventual champion An San in the quarterfinal. A better seeding would have taken her to the semifinal and given her a real shot at medal. Das also failed to make the most of a wide open men’s draw that saw none of the top eight seeds finish on the podium. He’d perhaps be the most disappointed across the board.

The expectations were high this time, and the contingent did not do themselves any favour by starting off poorly in the qualification round and ending up with difficult draws across the board as a result of their ranking round performances.

Artistic Gymnastics

Only the second Indian woman to participate in artistic gymnastics at the Olympics, Pranati Nayak would have found it difficult to qualify in the all-round category that is dominated by the powerhouses, but she also missed out on a spot in the final in any of the individual apparatuses. In vault, she registered only one attempt, while two attempts are needed for consideration to reach final.

Athletics

The headliner from the track and field is, without a doubt Neeraj Chopra. Apart from the javelin champion, Kamalpreet Kaur stood out by qualifying to the discus throw final with the second best throw. In the final, she couldn’t quite get going, finishing sixth. Avinash Sable continued his fine knack of setting a new personal bests at big events, rewriting his own national record in 3000m steeplechase. The men’s 4x400m relay produced an impressive performance to set a new Asian Record (and a national record, by extension of course) but, like Sable, fell agonisingly short of qualifying for the final.

Elsewhere though, there was disappointment galore for the athletes. While no one other than Neeraj, and perhaps Kamalpreet, were seen as medal contenders, a vast majority of them couldn’t get anywhere close to their personal bests. Perhaps an indication that they had peaked before the Games, trying to attain qualifying marks at the 11th hour.

Also read:

A mighty eighty seven point five eight: Thank you, Neeraj Chopra

Neeraj Chopra, the first... hopefully the first of many

Badminton

It was a hat-trick for Indian badminton at the Olympics and once again, it was PV Sindhu delivering at a big-ticket event. She became the first Indian woman athlete to win two Olympic medals. Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty were incredibly unlucky that the things panned out in such a way that despite defeating the eventual champions and winning two out of three group stage matches, they could not progress to the knockouts.

For B Sai Praneeth, there was disappointment as he paid the price for a shock defeat in his opening group match and got eliminated even before starting his second. It was unfortunate for India because the knockout draw opened up big time for Sai with the elimination of Ng Ka Long Angus and Kento Momota in the group stages, leaving the door open for a run to the semi-finals and a possible medal.

Behind PV Sindhu’s success, an incredible mindset to win and a strong support system

The importance of being PV Sindhu

Boxing

An unprecedented nine Indian boxers – five men and four women – made the cut for the showpiece but only one of them could finish on the podium, with Lovlina Borgohain (69kg) securing the lone medal, India’s first in nine years. She reached the semifinals to assure bronze and lost to the eventual champion.

Handed tricky draws, the men, however, could log just one win across the board – through debutant super heavyweight Satish Kumar – while world no 1 Amit Panghal (52kg) was among the rest who lost in the opening round.

Mary Kom endured the heartbreak of a hard-fought, and in her mind an unfair, split decision defeat.

The star of the contingent, without a doubt, was Borgohain for her two wins against quality opponents and putting up a fight till the end against a red-hot boxer in the semifinal.

Equestrian

If you had watched the Equestrian Eventing live on the broadcast, you would have heard the commentators reserve some rich praise for Fouaad Mirza, who rode Seigneur Medicott, and qualified for the jumping individual final, courtesy three solid rounds of qualifying across Dressage, Cross Country and Jumping. The 29-year-old Bengaluru rider, who was the first equestrian to qualify for the Olympics since Imtiaz Anees in Sydney 2000, was in the top 10 after the Dressage round.

(In the points system, penalties are used to decide standings. Lower the penalty (zero being best), better you performed)

Fencing

Fencing is one of the sporting events that has been part of every edition of the modern Olympic Games but we had to wait till 2021 in Tokyo for an Indian to feature. CA Bhavani Devi made history even before her campaign began in Tokyo. In the women’s individual sabre event, she won her round of 64 bout before going down fighting against the world No 3 Manon Brunet in the second round.

Golf

Every Olympic Games, there comes a story so captivating that it makes you sit up, drop everything else you are doing, and watch on intently even if it is a sport you do not follow regularly. Aditi Ashok made thousands of Indians not only watch golf for the first time at the Olympics, but made them curious about rules and follow her quest for what would have frankly been a ridiculous medal.

It was agonising. It stings. But golfer Aditi Ashok’s fourth place at Tokyo 2020 is a reason for joy

Hockey

A memorable hockey tournament for both the Indian teams, with the men ending a 41-year wait for a medal in the event while the women went beyond expectations and their rankings to not just reach the knockouts, but stun the mighty Australians. Even in the semifinal and bronze medal match, the team lost out only by the finest margins. The men’s team suffered just two defeats in the tournament, coming against the eventual finalists, and produced a thriller against Germany to clinch bronze.

Judo

Sushila Devi lost against Hungarian Eva Csernoviczki, a 2012 London edition bronze medallist, who pinned Sushila for a full 20 seconds to claim the Ippon and win the round of 32 match.

Sushila fought hard for a major part of the bout until she committed a small error, which proved costly. It was always going to be tough for the 26 year-old from Manipur at the world’s premier sporting competition. She was the only Indian Judo athlete at this year’s Olympic Games. She had qualified for her maiden Games via continental quota.

Rowing

Arjun Lal Jat and Arvind Singh produced the best-ever Olympic performance by Indian rowers as they bettered Dattu Bhokanal’s efforts in Rio (13th) to finish 11th in the men’s lightweight double sculls. They reached the Semifinal A/B race through repechage and that earned a spot in the top 12.

Sailing

In sailing, India were competing in multiple events for the first time . The highlight for the contingent was Vishnu Saravanan finished third in one of the ranking races. Nethra Kumanan too was in the top 20 in three out of her 10 races.

Shooting

India’s highly-rated shooting contingent fired a blank for the second straight Olympics Games, wrapping up their campaign at Tokyo 2020 with just one final appearance from 15 shooters.

Let that sink in: India reached just one final across ten events at Tokyo Olympics. That, perhaps more than anything, was the biggest surprise, taking into account the fact that medals are no guarantee in the final for such an unpredictable sport. Just like Rio 2016, India didn’t have a single medal in a discipline that has generally seen success for India at the international stage.

Read more about the team’s performances here.

Swimming

Srihari Nataraj and Sajan Prakash achieved Olympic Qualification Timing (OQT) ‘A’ level timings recently to create history for Indian swimming. Maana Patel received a spot through Universality quota. Here’s how the fared in their races:

Table tennis

Sharath Kamal, still going strong at 39, produced what he called one of the best performances in his career as he pushed Ma Long in the round 2 match to all corners before eventually losing in five games. G Sathiyan had a disappointing debut, losing a match he would have won nine times out of 10, in the second round. Manika Batra was impressive too in her second Olympics campaign and played two superb matches to go as far as the third round. Sutirtha Mukherjee, the lowest ranked among the four, pulled off a nice win against a higher-ranked opponent in round one.

Tennis

The drama that preceded their Olympics campaign did not quite match the results on court as another lukewarm campaign for Indian tennis came to an early close. Sumit Nagal became the first Indian since Leander Paes in 1996 to win a singles match at the Games but world No 2 Daniil Medvedev in the second round was a step up too far. The disappointment however was in doubles where Ankita Raina and Sania Mirza lost their first round match after taking the first 6-0 and serving for the second set.

Weightlifting

Mirabai Chanu won India’s first medal at Tokyo Olympics with a silver in women’s 49kg weightlifting.

The Indian lifted a total of 202kgs to finish second to China’s Hou Zhihui, who won the gold with an Olympic record total of 210 kgs. She started with successful lifts of 84kg and 87kg in the snatch to make the perfect start to her quest for a podium finish. A world record holder in clean and jerk in women’s 49kg category, Mirabai was in a good position to finish on the podium once she was in the top places after the snatch. The Indian made a successful attempt of 110 kg to start off Clean & Jerk before an incredible second lift of 115 kg

She became the second Indian to win an Olympic medal in weightlifting after Karnam Malleswari’s historic bronze in 2000 and just the fifth individual to win a silver medal.

Wrestling

In wrestling, the undoubted success story was Ravi Kumar Dahiya who produced a stunning comeback in the second period of his semifinal bout to ensure India would medal for the fourth consecutive Games in the sport. But it was a strange old campaign for the grapplers as there was a sense of underachievement at the end despite adding two medals to India’s tally. Bajrang Punia expected more from himself than a bronze while top seed Vinesh Phogat endured another Olympics heartbreak, this time due to the results that did not go her way in a tough field.

Bajrang Punia, Ravi Kumar Dahiya and the weight of their own expectations

On the day India won two Olympic medals, a second Olympic heartbreak for Vinesh Phogat

With inputs from Zenia D’Cunha and PTI

Clarification: The article was originally published without the swimmers’s results. The error has been rectified.