Paris 2024: Double digit medal mark - a measured possibility or mere hype?

Remember when the uncelebrated Sakshi Malik brought India’s first medal in 2016 so late in the night that the papers had already gone to print without the news? Or when Aditi Ashok jolted the country awake at the crack of dawn in 2021 in hopes of an absurd medal in Golf?

One of the glorious uncertainties of the Olympics is that medals can never be predicted with accuracy. The disappointment in Shooting at Tokyo 2020 shows how heartbreakingly wrong pre-Games forecasts can turn out to be.

After the record haul of six medals in 2012, many had predicted that 2016 would see India reach a double-digit medal haul.

We won just two.

The Tokyo Games saw a revival, with India winning seven medals and Neeraj Chopra bringing home a priceless gold.

Three years since that triumph, there is again the whisper of a hope - can India win 10 medals at the 2024 Paris Olympics?

Analysts make a sobering prediction

Olympic analysts Gracenote, whose statistical data had predicted that India would win 17 medals in Tokyo (including 8 in Shooting!), are less optimistic this time.

According to their forecast for the 2024 Games, which considers available results data from key global and continental competitions since the 2021 Games, India will win less than 10 medals and will not be among the top 30 nations.

Despite this sobering prediction from the global agency, despite the past disappointments, and despite how unkind the year has been to numerical forecasts, there are reasons to hope.

This is down to how the Indian sports ecosystem has transformed over the last decade.

According to data with the Mission Olympic Cell, INR. 72 crore has been spent under the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) on India’s athletes in the last three years - almost double that of Rio 2016.

And not just monetary investments, there has been a significant improvement in aspects like injury management. For the first time, a recovery centre with sports science equipment will be available for Indian athletes at the Games Village.

Perhaps the hoodoo of not being able to peak at the right time is behind us.

Expectations: Two medals - 1 each in Athletics and Badminton

Golden boy Neeraj Chopra remains at the top of the rankings in javelin.

He has maintained a mark of around 88m in recent years, a mark that only two others in the world have managed to reach, albeit with lesser consistency - Jakub Vadlejch and Julian Weber.

The 19-year-old German prodigy Max Dehning and Neeraj’s old foe Anderson Peters are two others to keep an eye out for, but anything less than another gold medal would be a disappointment for Neeraj.

The best story in Indian sports in the last three years has been the rise of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, who are set to ensure that Badminton continues to account for one medal at every edition since 2008.

A first ever Thomas Cup win, a first ever medal at the BWF World Championships, a first ever Super 1000 title and the first doubles pair from India to be ranked number one in the world - the last two years have seen this men’s doubles duo scale some unprecedented heights.

2024 has seen a bit of a blip, with Satwik and Chirag now having fallen down to 3rd in the world rankings, but Paris has been the site of some of their biggest conquests. Thus, a historic medal is expected from them, with gold being a definite possibility.

Hopes: Six medals - 1 more each in Shooting, Archery, Boxing and Wrestling

Moving on to the more unpredictable sports which could make or break India’s medal tally at the Paris Games.

Blame it on an inability to perform under pressure, athlete-coach misunderstandings or malfunctioning pistols, Shooting has evoked nothing but nightmare for the Indian fan in recent years.

Jitu Rai missing out of the 2016 pistol finals after fluffing his last two shots, Manu Bhaker letting down Saurabh Chaudhary in the mixed team event in 2021, there are a lot of demons that would be exorcised with a medal or two in this sport.

For what it is worth, India’s pistol and rifle shooters have been in fine form recently, and this year’s selection trials to pick the Paris squad was the most competitive in history.

Manu Bhaker, Elavenil Valarivan, Ramita Jindal, Arjun Babuta, Aishwary Tomar and Sarabjot Singh were among those who registered world-class scores across the four trials.

India’s shooters’ brilliant showing at last year’s Asiad, where they won seven gold medals (compared to the nine gold medals won across all editions till 2018), and Russia’s exclusion are two other factors which bode well for the contingent.

The optimistic fan will point out that the contingent is in realistic reckoning for as many as 7-8 medals in this sport, especially in the rifle events, but the pessimistic fan will remind the rest that Indian stands as good a chance to win 0 medals.

What can be hoped for is that at least one of the in-form shooters will hit bull’s eye.

India have never won an Olympic medal in Archery, but the men’s team stand a good chance of breaking that rut this time.

Ranked only behind Korea, the men’s recurve team of Dhiraj Bommadevara, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav can be expected to reach the medal matches. The trio even beat the reigning Olympic champions Korea in the final of the Archery World Cup Stage in Shanghai earlier this year.

In the two combat sports, all hopes lie with India’s women.

Nikhat Zareen is the likeliest to go the distance in Boxing, with Lovlina Borgohain’s tough draw making her an outlier.

Nikhat has lost just two bouts since 2022 and there is no boxer in the 50kg draw she has not beaten yet.

In Wrestling, any of the women in the lower weight categories stand a good chance to go all the way. Antim Panghal, the 4th seed in the 53kg division, has a relatively easy path to the medal rounds. At least one medal each from these two sports can be realistically expected.

Dreams: 15 medals - 1 in Weightlifting, 2 more in Boxing, 2 more in Wrestling and 4 more in Shooting

If India do not win six medals at least, the Paris 2024 campaign will be seen as a disappointment. However, if we allow ourselves to dream, the medal tally could well touch 15, why just stop at the double-digit mark?

The key to this is how the Shooting contingent performs on the big stage.

That India have never fielded a stronger contingent was a statement many had to swallow in Tokyo, but it is a statement which is well worth making again.

Apart from the six shooters mentioned earlier, India are well in the reckoning for a medal in the mixed pistol and rifle team events. Even if half of these medal chances bear fruit, we stand to win around 4 to 5 medals in this sport alone.

In Wrestling, repechage could be the keyword for a few days as all of Anshu Malik (who would have been a stronger contender had it not been for a recent shoulder strain), Vinesh Phogat and Aman Sehrawat can be contenders to take their second chance to clinch bronze medals.

Lovlina Borgohain will face her recent vanquisher Li Qian in the quarters, but on the plus side, she had beaten her on Indian soil.

Either her or the debutant Preeti Pawar can be hoped to add to Nikhat’s medal.

On the men’s side, Nishant Dev can be said to be the likeliest candidate on the basis of his World Championship bronze from last year.

Mirabai Chanu, who will be appearing in her third Olympics, is heading into this one with an injury-ravaged body. If she can reach close to her best in time, she is well in line for a bronze medal to add to her silver from Tokyo.

Fantasies

Also worth mentioning are PV Sindhu’s big-tournament mentality which might provide a send-off worthy of the legend; Lakshya Sen and HS Prannoy’s capacity to pull off upsets; Kishore Jena’s once-in-a-blue-moon 87m throw in javelin which could result in an unthinkable double podium finish with Neeraj; the men’s relay team’s 5th-place finish at last year’s Worlds; the men’s hockey team’s seemingly smooth path to the quarterfinals from where anything could happen; individual archers Dhiraj Bommadevara and Deepika Kumari’s world ranking of 12th keeping them in good stead in reaching the medal rounds; and Aditi Ashok’s habit of shining on the biggest stages.

Predicted Medal Count: 6+

Sports-wise distribution of predicted medals:

Shooting: 1 to 5

Wrestling: 1 to 3

Boxing: 1 to 3

Archery: 1 to 2

Athletics: 1 to 2

Badminton: 1 to 2

Weightlifting: 0 to 1

Hockey: 0 to 1

Golf: 0 to 1