Three years on, consistent Neeraj is India’s biggest hope in Paris

Mumbai: Over the course of the last four Olympics from Beijing to Tokyo, the volume of India’s contingent has gradually expanded. The athlete count of 56 for the 2008 Games expanded to 122 in the Games of three years ago, with steady upticks in 2012 London (83) and 2016 Rio (117).

With India’s overall squad for the Paris Games nearly firmed up, that trend appears unlikely to follow in this shorter-than-usual three-year Olympic cycle. Almost all qualification spots and quotas across sports for the mega event starting on July 26 are locked in, with some room left to add in track and field. The final count of athletes that will sneak in through the world rankings quota, for which some made last-gasp efforts at the inter-state meet that ended on Sunday, will be known by the end of this week, said Athletics Federation of India president Adille Sumariwalla.

Even with that, the size of the Indian contingent headed to Paris, as it stands, will likely be between 110-120. While the strength of the squad isn’t always directly proportional to the medals eventually won, more sports have tailed off in representation than gained momentum since Tokyo where India returned its best medal haul of seven. Some, like fencing and gymnastics, in which Bhavani Devi and Pranati Nayak respectively competed in Tokyo, have been wiped off.

The most glaring miss, and the biggest drop of 16, is down to the women’s hockey team not making it to Paris. From its heartbreaking yet heartwarming fourth-place finish in Tokyo to not being good enough to even be there in the next Olympics was a reality they did not expect to confront, as the now former women’s coach Janneke Schopman put it when the team failed to qualify earlier this year.

Trims have happened elsewhere from other prominent sports that have traditionally been India’s strongholds in multi-sport events.

Boxing, which had nine challengers in Tokyo including five men, has been reduced to six Indian hopefuls in Paris. Only two of them are men, with both Tokyo Olympian Amit Panghal and young Nishant Dev booking their Paris berths only in the final qualifying event last month. Wrestling, which fetched two medals from a team of seven in Tokyo, will have six in Paris and, like boxing, has had a decisive drop in one gender. Its male representation this time — Aman Sehrawat — is fewer than even the medal winners from three years ago. Silver medallist Ravi Dahiya, who made way for Sehrawat in 57kg, and Bajrang Punia, the bronze winner, won’t be around.

The common thread to both these sports is off-field issues over the last year or so. Wrestling in the country effectively came to a standstill during the public protests by top grapplers against the then federation president, while some boxers knocked on the doors of the court against the evaluation-based selection policy formed by high-performance director Bernard Dunne, who has since left.

Swimming has also seen a dip, in terms of representation and the road to it. From three swimmers competing in four events in Tokyo for which two had achieved the A standard time, Paris will have only a couple of Indian swimmers who needed the Universality quotas to get in. Rowing — down from two athletes to one — and sailing — down from three events to two — have also not matched the tally of Tokyo.

From the ones to exceed it, shooting stands out. From 15 shooters who stood at the Tokyo ranges with just one final appearance to show, India will field 21 shooters in Chateauroux, around three hours away from Paris where shooting events will be held. Only India and China, a country with 67 Olympic shooting medals, have a total of 21 quotas at these Games. Indian shooting has lived through a false dawn of a flurry of World Cup medals leading up to Tokyo not translating into meaningful results when it counted, and would hope the quotas rise is a starting point towards correcting that.

Table tennis has had a notable first for Paris, with the men’s and women’s teams earning the right to compete in the team events for the first time. That has increased the paddlers’ count from four in Tokyo to six in Paris, though no Indian pair has qualified for the mixed doubles. Similar is the case with archery, which will have both teams in focus with India fielding a full quota of archers at the Olympics for the first time since 2012 London. Only the men’s team was around in Tokyo.

Another significant rise is in badminton. Four shuttlers, one each in singles and the pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty turned up for Tokyo while seven are gearing up for Paris. That includes the women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto and two entries in men’s singles (Lakshya Sen and HS Prannoy).

Athletics is also set to carry a few more to Paris than in Tokyo. The number, depending on the final rankings list that is set for later this week after taking into account dropouts and other variables, could be 30 or a little over it, according to Sumariwalla.

As for the Tokyo medallists still around to give another shot in Paris, there is Neeraj Chopra, Mirabai Chanu, PV Sindhu, Lovlina Borgohain and the men’s hockey team. Chopra, the reigning world and Olympic champion who has only added more silverware since, unsurprisingly remains the leader of that select group.