Top 5 Disciplines That Represent the Highest Number of Indian Athletes at the 2024 Paris Olympics
The 2024 Paris Olympics is a mere few hours away as we move into the final few days before the year’s marquee event kicks off. After a record-breaking medal tally and a historic gold at the Tokyo Olympics, the Indian contingent will be geared up to bring more glory home.
There will be 117 Indian athletes competing in 16 sports in close to 70 events while competing for 95 medals. In this article, we will be taking a look at the top 5 with the highest number of Indian athletes competing.
#5 Badminton
Led by two-time Olympic medalist, PV Sindhu, the Badminton contingent will be one of the best medal contenders for India. Sindhu can create history if she is able to win another medal. With two medals already to her name she could become the most decorated player in women’s singles at the Olympics.
Along with Sindhu, a significant medal contenders would be the men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty. The male duo have World Championships bronze, Asian Games gold and Asian Championships title to their name.
The pair also achieved the World number 1 ranking and played a major role in the 2022 Thomas Cup victory. They will enter the competition as World number 3 and hope to win a medal in Paris.
Men
- HS Prannoy and Lakshya Sen – Singles
- Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty – Doubles
Women
- PV Sindhu – Singles
- Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto- Doubles
#4 Table Tennis
Sharath Kamal will be the most experienced player in the Table Tennis team
The Indian Table Tennis team will be led by Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra. At the age of 42-year-old, Sharath playing in his fifth Olympics will lead the men’s team and will be the second-oldest Indian to feature in the Paris Olympics after Rohan Bopanna.
Paris Olympics will be the first-ever participation of the Indian squads at the Olympics. There will be eight table tennis players who will represent India at the Paris Olympics including two reserve players.
While these eight athletes will be playing in team events they will also participate in singles, doubles and mixed doubles.
Men: A. Sharath Kamal, Harmeet Desai, Manav Thakkar and G. Sathiyan (Reserve).
Women: Manika Batra, Sreeja Akula, Archana Kamath and Ayhika Mukherjee (Reserve).
#3 Hockey
It will only be the 19 (including 3 reserve players) male athletes representing Indian hockey at the Paris Olympics after the women’s team failed to qualify. The team will be captained by defender Harmanpreet Singh while Hardik Singh will serve as his deputy.
The squad will also include veteran goalkeeper PR Sreejesh and the captain of the bronze medal-winning 2020 Olympic side, Manpreet Singh. Along with the veterans, Jarmanpreet Singh, Sanjay, Raj Kumar Pal, Abhishek and Sukhjeet Singh will be making their Olympic debuts in Paris.
The Indian team won a historic medal in hockey after 40 years in Tokyo when they defeated Germany in the bronze medal match. Field hockey has been by far the most dominant sport for Indians at the Olympics. Among the 35 medals India has won 12 have come in field hockey including eight gold medals.
Goalkeeper
- PR Sreejesh
Defenders
- Jarmanpreet Singh
- Amit Rohidas
- Harmanpreet Singh ©
- Sumit
- Sanjay
Midfielders
- Rajkumar Pal
- Shamsher Singh
- Manpreet Singh
- Hardik Singh
- Vivek Sagar Prasad
Forwards
- Abhishek
- Sukhjeet Singh
- Lalit Kumar Upadhyay
- Mandeep Singh
- Gurjant Singh
Reserves
- Nilakanta Sharma
- Jugraj Singh
- Krishan Bahadur Pathak
#2 Shooting
Led by Manu Bhaker, the shooting contingent will have 21 athletes representing India. Manu Bhaker will be the only athlete participating in more than one individual event. After winning no medals in the Tokyo Olympics the Indian team will be expected to bounce back strongly.
They have already made a strong start by obtaining the maximum possible 16 quotas from the Olympic shooting qualifying events.
Rifle
- Men’s 10m air rifle: Sandeep Singh, Arjun Babuta
- Women’s 10m air rifle: Elavenil Valarivan, Ramita Jindal
- Women’s 50m rifle 3 positions: Sift Kaur Samra, Anjum Moudgil
- Men’s 50m rifle 3 positions: Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, Swapnil Kusale
- 10m air rifle mixed team: Sandeep Singh/Elavenil Valarivan, Arjun Babuta/Ramita Jindal
Pistol
- Men’s 10m air pistol: Sarabjot Singh, Arjun Cheema
- Women’s 10m air pistol: Manu Bhaker, Rhythm Sangwan
- Men’s 25m rapid fire pistol: Anish Bhanwala, Vijayveer Sidhu
- Women’s 25m pistol: Manu Bhaker, Esha Singh
- 10m air pistol mixed team: Sarabjot Singh/Manu Bhaker, Arjun Singh Cheema/Rhythm Sangwan
Shotgun
- Men’s trap: Prithviraj Tondaiman
- Women’s trap: Rajeshwari Kumari, Shreyasi Singh
- Men’s skeet: Anantjeet Singh Naruka
- Women’s skeet: Maheshwari Chauhan, Raiza Dhillon
- Skeet mixed team: Anantjeet Singh Naruka/Maheshwari Chauhan
#1 Athletics
Athletics will have the largest representation of Indian athletes in Paris
The Indian athletics contingent will witness the highest number of Indian athletes in the Olympics. The team consists of 29 players including two reserves for both male and female 4×400 relay races.
Also Read: Top 5 Records that could be scripted or broken at the 2024 Paris Olympics
The Indian track and field team will be led by fan favorite, Neeraj Chopra, who created history at the Tokyo Olympics when he won the first individual gold medal for India in athletics.
The javelin thrower will be aiming to win another gold and become the first Indian athlete to win two successive gold medals at the Olympics. While Chopra was the only one from the athletics contingent to win a medal at the Tokyo Olympics he will certainly hope that he will be joined by a few more in Paris.
Men
- Sarvesh Kushare – Men’s High Jump
- Suraj Panwar – Marathon race walk mixed relay
- Akshdeep Singh, Vikas Singh, Paramjeet Bisht – Men’s 20km Racewalk
- Kishore Jena, Neeraj Chopra – Men’s Javelin Throw
- Muhammed Anas, Muhammed Ajmal, Amoj Jacob, Santhosh Tamilarasan, Rajesh Ramesh – Men’s 4x400m Relay
- Avinash Sable – Men’s 3000m Steeplechase
- Tajinderpal Singh Toor – Men’s Shot Put
- Abdulla Aboobacker, Praveen Chithravel – Men’s Triple Jump
- Jeswin Aldrin – Men’s Long Jump
Women
- Annu Rani – Women’s Javelin Throw
- Parul Chaudhary – Women’s 3000m Steeplechase, Women’s 5000m
- Kiran Pahal – Women’s 400m, Women’s 4x400m Relay
- Jyothi Yarraji – Women’s 100m Hurdles
- Ankita Dhyani – Women’s 5000m
- Priyanka Goswami – Women’s 20km Racewalk, Marathon race walk mixed relay
- Jyothika Sri Dandi, Subha Venkatesan, Vithya Ramraj, Poovamma MR – Women’s 4x400m Relay
Reserve
- Prachi (Women’s 4x400m Relay)
- Mijo Chacko Kurian (Men’s 4x400m Relay)