Olympics 2020: A Tribute

RED KP

5-Sep-2021

“There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen.”

This edition of The Olympics has given us hope that India is slowly and steadily adopting a sports culture. Winning medals in Olympics has not been an issue since the 1996 Olympics when Leander Paes won a bronze medal in tennis singles, but this time it was something special as India has won Gold, Silver and Bronze medals in the same Olympics. With the best tally of 7 medals in the Olympics history, India beat its previous best of 6 medals during the 2012 London Olympics. Neeraj Chopra’s Gold medal in Men’s Javelin throw who went on to become the second Indian individual to win a Gold medal in Olympics.

But last week at the same time we were reeling below with one medal in the tally then which had been a Silver medal won in weightlifting by Mirabai Chanu on the 24th of July. The people in India had lost hope as the most expected shooting and archery teams who were deemed to be medal prospects could not advance to the knockouts, though a few individuals like Deepika Kumari, Atanu Das, Manu Bhaker from these teams had done well, these are the two events where even an air factor could influence the result of the game, even the tennis contingent had been knocked out from the tournament during the initial stages.

But as the event progressed we could see medal prospects had started to emerge, while someone like P.V. Sindhu, Bajrang Punia(Both finished with bronze medals) were expected to win the medals, but someone like Lovlina in boxing and Ravi Kumar Dhahiya in wrestling were an unprecedented medal winner who finished with a bronze and silver medals respectively. Our hockey teams both men and women had advanced to the semis of the event. The men’s team went on to win a bronze medal which was our first Olympic medal in almost 40 odd years. Our women’s team though did not clinch a medal, but they made us all proud. Wrestling returned with two medals home, they will hope for betterment in the upcoming future. Special mention to Kamalpreet Kaur(discus throw) and Aditi Ashok(golf) who made the Indians glue to their televisions for watching an unfamiliar sport.