With quartermiler Mohammad Anas, long jumper Ankit Singh and 200m specialist Srabani Nanda qualifying for the Olympics on Sunday, India is sending its largest-ever contingent to the Rio Olympics — 102 participants.
The previous best was in the 2012 london Olympics, when 83 athletes travelled to the UK’s capital. Just like last Olympics, this time too all the athletes will represent the country in 13 sports.
This number could increase as there are still few more events set to take place before July 11 deadline for Rio qualification in athletics.
One of the main reasons behind the massive increase in the number is due to the impressive performance of the track and field athletes in the qualifiers.
In london, 14 track and field athletes (eight men and six women) competed. This time the number has increased to 23 (12 men and 11 women). Thereby, athletics are set to contribute the second biggest number of participants from the country after hockey which will have 36 players — 18 each for men’s and women’s team.
Among the other main contributors, shooting will have 12 representatives (nine men and three women), wrestling with eight (five men and three women) and badminton with seven (three men and four women).
Also this is the first time India will be represented by seven shuttlers at the Summer Games. At london Olympics, five Indian shuttlers had qualified. Among other new achievements, in table tennis as well for the first time India will be participating in all four singles category (two men and two women).
Notably, Dipa Karmakar scripted the biggest of all the achievements, becoming the first Indian female gymnast to qualify for the Olympics.
With such a large number of athletes representing the country in Rio this summer, India will certainly hope to better its previous best of six medals (2 silver and 4 bronze), which they managed in london, this time around.