Manu Bhaker’s Double Bronze Headlines India’s 6-Medal Success in Paris, 6 Fall Just Short –

India’s campaign came to an end at the 2024 Paris Olympics with six medals – one silver and five bronze.

History was made with records being broken and rewritten as well as near misses with fourth-place finishes in six events.

ALSO READ | Paris Olympics 2024: Complete Result of Every Indian Athlete Who Participated in the 33rd Summer Games

Medallists

Manu Bhaker etched her name in history by winning two bronze medals, becoming the first Indian woman to win a shooting medal at the Olympics as well as the first Indian athlete to win multiple medals in a single edition at the Summer Games post-Independence.

When Manu qualified for the women’s 10m air pistol final, she became the first Indian woman to do so in a shooting event since Athens 2004. She went on to clinch bronze the next day. Manu then partnered Sarabjot Singh to win bronze again.

Swapnil Kusale’s bronze medal in the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions, the country’s first-ever in the event, and also took India’s medal count to three, making shooting the best-ever medal tally in a single sport at the Olympics.

The Indian men’s hockey team clinched bronze for back-to-back Olympic medals in hockey after 52 years – since the Munich 1972 Games. The Hamrnapreet Singh-led side defeated Spain 2-1 in the third-place play-off match and extended India’s record to its 13th Olympic medal in hockey.

Neeraj Chopra became the most-decorated Olympian from India as he won silver to add to gold from Tokyo to be the third two-time Olympic medallist from India after Sushil Kumar and PV Sindhu.

Aman Sehrawat clinched bronze in the 57kg men’s freestyle wrestling to become the youngest-ever individual Olympic medallist from India at 21 years, 0 months, and 24 days.

ALSO READ | India at Paris Olympics 2024: Full List of Medal Winners

6 Finish 4th

Manu Bhaker could have added a third medal to her tally at the 33rd Summer Games but she narrowly missed out in the women’s 25m air pistol event.

Shooters Arjun Babuta in the men’s 10m air pistol and Anantjeet Singh Naruka and Maheshwari Chauhan in the mixed skeet event also came close to winning a medal but eventually also finished fourth.

Archers Dhiraj Bommadevara and Ankita Bhakat also finished fourth in the mixed team event.

Lakshya Sen became the first Indian shuttler to reach the men’s badminton semi-final, where he lost to eventual gold medallist Viktor Axelsen and then lost the bronze-medal match to Malaysia’s Lee Zii Jia in the bronze medal match.

Weightlifter Mirabai Chanu, who had won silver in Tokyo, missed out on a medal as she finished fourth in the women’s 49kg category.

Best-ever?

117 athletes, across 16 sports – archery, athletics, badminton, boxing, equestrian, golf, hockey, judo, rowing, sailing, shooting, swimming, wrestling, table tennis and tennis – but fell short of India’s best medal tally at the Olympics, the seven medals (1 gold, 2 silver and 4 bronze) at Tokyo 2020.

A seventh medal was almost guaranteed for India when Vinesh Phogat reached the final of the women’s 50 kg category, becoming the first woman to qualify for a gold-medal bout.

She was disqualified after failing her second weigh-in, by just 100 grams, before the final as she went on to announce her retirement from the sport.

She has since appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against her disqualification, asking for a joint silver medal. If she succeeds, India will match their best-ever medals tally in the Olympics.

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