While this is for the first time India’s biggest Olympic contingent is participating in the games. Let’s check some records that Indian athletes might be looking to break:
Archery- Archery is perhaps the 10,000 years old sport that made its official debut in the Olympic Games in 1900 and thereafter in 1904, 1908 and 1920. After that archery was withdrawn from Olympics and reappeared after more than half a decade in 1972. Lee Chang-Hwan of Korea currently holds the world record score of 117 in 12 arrows and Atanu Das will try hard to break his record. While South Korean players hold records for maximum Archery medals, Indian favorites Deepika Kumari, Bombayal Devi and Laxmirani Manjhi will be keeping Indian hopes alive in the event. Archery is the event where Indian female athletes are dominating over one male candidate for the Rio medal hope.
Badminton- It was in 1992 Barcelona Olympics that the sport made its official debut and since then it has been a great crowd puller. China has laid its hand on 30 badminton Olympics medals out of 69 won by Asian countries. Following China it is the European country Denmark that has won the most remaining medals. While China, Indonesia and Korea jointly won 23 out of 24 gold medals since 1992 Olympics the competition will be tough for Indian hopes and star Saina Nehwal and the rising star P Sindhu. This is for the first time that Indian male badminton players are making their debut in the arena; the matches will be worth watching. Making their debut in the games, Srikanth Kidambi, Manu Attri, B Sumeeth Reddy, Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa are the best players from India but it is the rivalry between Lin Dan of China and Lee Chong Wei continued since last decade and two Olympics game will be worth every penny. Wish and hope that Saina is able to win her consecutive Olympics medal.
Hockey- While India is the country with maximum gold medals in this game the year 1956, 1960 & 1964 were the exceptional years. In the final of 1956 India defeated their arch rival Pakistan by 1-0, next Olympics Pakistan defeated India by 1-0 and in the very next Olympics again India defeated Pakistan by 1-0. Making their comeback the men’s hockey team has already defeated Spain by 2-1 in the warm-up match of Rio Olympics, let’s hope to keep the torch alive. In the same arena Indian women’s hockey team has made entry after 36 years, let’s hope for some close battles and wins in favor of the young team.
Wrestling- Since its debut in 1896 wrestling or as we called it Pehalwani has been favorite of all. While wrestling is the hot topic in India today little known that Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav was the first Indian to win Olympic medal before much talked Sushil Kumar. With total eight players competing on the mat it is the female wrestlers who will give everyone run for their money standing close in race of Olympic Glory to the male wrestlers of the likes of Yogeshwar Dutt and Narsingh Yadav.