Kreeda Shorts: India’s Performance at the Tokyo Olympics

The Tokyo Olympics conclude with India laying the red carpet for its Olympic heroes.

India finished 48th Rank in the medal tally, its highest-ever finish in the last 4 decades. The previous best performance was at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 where India finished 51st.

India would have finished 33rd at if we were to only go by the total number of medals won. However, the ranking is purely based on the number of gold medals won.

The nation won a total of 7 medals (1 Gold, 2 Silver and 4 Bronze):
Neeraj Chopra ? (Javelin)
Saikhom Mirabai Chanu ? (Weightlifting)
Ravi Kumar Dahiya ? (Wrestling)
Men’s Team? (Hockey)
PV Sindhu ? (Badminton)
Lovlina Borgohain ? (Boxing)
Bajrang Punia ? (Wrestling)

While the government facilitates the victorious athletes, the sad reality still remains that they are only in focus when they win and the required funding and attention is rarely given to these athletes while they prepare for the games. With limited help from the government and a lack of world-class training and medical facilities we ought to remember that these athletes won the medals despite these conditions and because of it.

On the other hand, India would have definitely won if there were to be a medal for creating the most noise on social media. It emerged as the country with the largest engagements on Facebook and Instagram. Hopefully this virtual support can transition to real-world impacts on an individual as well as organizational level and sports can truly take off across the land.