India at Rio de Janeiro Olympics 2016

The Current edition of the largest sports festival is going to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil starting today till 21st August 016. Opening, Closing ceremonies and several events will be held in the famous Maracanã Stadium where the 2014 FIFA world cup final was also held. In this edition there will be 205 countries with 11000 odd athletes participating across 306 events. Due to the European migrant crisis and other reasons, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will allow athletes to compete as Independent Olympians under the Olympic Flag. In the previous Olympic Games, refugees were ineligible to compete because of their inability to represent their home NOCs. On 2 March 2016, the IOC finalized plans for a specific Refugee Olympic Team (ROT); out of 43 refugee athletes deemed potentially eligible, 10 were chosen to form the team.

The Mascot for the Games was Vinicius, named after Brazilian lyricist Vinicius de Moraes, is the Olympic mascot. Vinicius's design represents Brazilian wildlife, combining "the agility of cats, sway of monkeys and grace of birds. The character's arms and legs can stretch unlimited distances. Tom, named after the musician Tom Jobim, is the Paralympic mascot. Tom's design represents the plants of Brazilian forests; any object can be pulled out of the leaves on Tom's head.

With regards to the Indian Participation in the current edition, IOA will be sending 124 athletes participating in 15 sports. In the last edition that was held in London, India won a record 6 medals and this time India hopes to increase the medal count to double digit or a minimum of to surpass the 6 medals that it won last time. Going by the facts and the contingent that hopes of the medal tally seems to be realistic and of course it is achievable in this edition.

Indian participation is mentioned in the below table.

Sports	Men	Women	Total	Events
Archery	1	3	4	3
Athletics	17	17	34	17
Badminton	3	4	7	4
Boxing	3	0	3	3
Field hockey	16	16	32	2
Golf	2	1	3	2
Gymnastics	0	1	1	5
Judo	1	0	1	1
Rowing	1	0	1	1
Shooting	9	3	12	11
Swimming	1	1	2	2
Table tennis	2	2	4	2
Tennis	2	2	4	3
Weightlifting	1	1	2	2
Wrestling	5	3	8	8
Total	64	55	119	65

Athlete	Event	Date of Event
Archery
Atanu Das	Men's individual	5-Aug
Bombayla Devi	Women's individual	5-Aug
Deepika Kumari		5-Aug
Laxmirani Majhi		5-Aug
Deepika Kumari	Women's team	5-Aug
Bombayla Devi
Laxmirani Majhi
Athletics
Mohammad Anas	400 m	12-Aug
Jinson Johnson	800 m	12-Aug
Mohammad Anas	4 × 400 m relay	19-Aug
Ayyasamy Dharun
Mohan Kumar
Lalit Mathur
Kunhu Muhammed
Arokia Rajiv
Thonakal Gopi	Marathon	21-Aug
Kheta Ram
Nitendra Singh Rawat
Ganapathi Krishnan	20 km walk	12-Aug
Manish Singh
Gurmeet Singh
Sandeep Kumar	50 km walk	19-Aug
Manish Singh
Ankit Sharma	Long jump	12-Aug
Renjith Maheshwary	Triple jump	15-Aug
Vikas Gowda	Discus throw	12-Aug
Dutee Chand	100 m	12-Aug
Srabani Nanda	200 m	15-Aug
Nirmala Sheoran	400 m	13-Aug
Tintu Luka	800 m	17-Aug
Lalita Babar	3000 m steeplechase	13-Aug
Sudha Singh
Ashwini Akkunji	4 × 400 m relay	19-Aug
Debashree Majumdar
Jisna Mathew
M. R. Poovamma
Nirmala Sheoran
Anilda Thomas
O. P. Jaisha	Marathon	14-Aug
Kavita Raut
Khushbir Kaur	20 km walk	19-Aug
Sapna Punia
Manpreet Kaur	Shot put	12-Aug
Seema Antil	Discus throw	15-Aug
Badminton
Srikanth Kidambi	Singles
Manu Attri	Doubles
B. Sumeeth Reddy
Saina Nehwal	Singles
P. V. Sindhu
Jwala Gutta	Doubles
Ashwini Ponnappa
Boxing
Shiva Thapa	Bantamweight
Manoj Kumar	Light welterweight
Vikas Krishan Yadav	Middleweight
Golf
Shiv Chawrasia	Men's
Anirban Lahiri
Aditi Ashok	Women's
Artistic - Gymnastics
Dipa Karmakar		7-Aug
Judo
Avtar Singh	Men's −90 kg	10-Aug
Rowing
Dattu Baban Bhokanal	Men's single sculls	6-Aug
Shooting
Abhinav Bindra	10 m air rifle	8-Aug
Prakash Nanjappa	50 m pistol	10-Aug
Gagan Narang	10 m air rifle	8-Aug
	50 m rifle prone	12-Aug
	50 m rifle 3 positions	14-Aug
Jitu Rai	10 m air pistol	6-Aug
	50 m pistol	10-Aug
Chain Singh	50 m rifle prone	12-Aug
	50 m rifle 3 positions	14-Aug
Gurpreet Singh	10 m air pistol	6-Aug
	25 m rapid fire pistol	12-Aug
Manavjit Singh Sandhu	Trap	7-Aug
Kynan Chenai	Trap	7-Aug
Mairaj Ahmad Khan	Skeet	12-Aug
Apurvi Chandela	10 m air rifle	6-Aug
Ayonika Paul		6-Aug
Heena Sidhu	10 m air pistol	7-Aug
	25 m pistol	9-Aug
Swimming
Sajan Prakash	200 m butterfly	8-Aug
Shivani Kataria	200 m freestyle	8-Aug
Table Tennis
Sharath Kamal Achanta	Men's singles
Soumyajit Ghosh
Manika Batra	Women's singles
Mouma Das
Tennis
Rohan Bopanna	Men's doubles	6-Aug
Leander Paes
Sania Mirza	Women's doubles	6/7 August
Prarthana Thombare
Sania Mirza	Mixed doubles	10-Aug
Rohan Bopanna
Weightlifting
Sathish Sivalingam	Men's −77 kg	10-Aug
Saikhom Mirabai Chanu	Women's −48 kg	6-Aug
Wrestling
Men's freestyle
Sandeep Tomar	−57 kg	19-Aug
Yogeshwar Dutt	−65 kg	21-Aug
Narsingh Pancham Yadav	-74 kg	19-Aug
Men's Greco-Roman
Ravinder Khatri	−85 kg	15-Aug
Hardeep Singh	−98 kg	16-Aug
Women's freestyle
Vinesh Phogat	−48 kg	17-Aug
Babita Kumari	−53 kg	18-Aug
Sakshi Malik	−58 kg	17-Aug

Mens Hockey Squad

Head coach: Roelant Oltmans

Surender Kumar

Danish Mujtaba

V. R. Raghunath

Akashdeep Singh

Chinglensana Singh

Harmanpreet Singh

Kothajit Singh

Manpreet Singh

Ramandeep Singh

Rupinder Pal Singh

Sardara Singh

P. R. Sreejesh (C & GK)

S. V. Sunil

Nikkin Thimmaiah

S. K. Uthappa

Devinder Walmiki

Womens Hockey Squad

Head coach: Neil Hawgood

Savita Punia (GK)

Deep Grace Ekka

Deepika Thakur

Namita Toppo

Sunita Lakra

Sushila Chanu (C)

Lilima Minz

Renuka Yadav

Nikki Pradhan

Monika Malik

Navjot Kaur

Anuradha Devi

Poonam Rani

Vandana Kataria

Preeti Dubey

Rani Rampal

As we see that there are record number of athletes in the above list, we are also familiar with several names which are known for the amount of accolades and trophies that has been added to their name. In that case let us see the probable candidates who can actually win the medals for us in this edition. If we go back on the earlier editions of the olympics and india's performance since independence, it has won Gold in Hockey in several occasions as mentioned below.

(1). Hockey Mens event - Gold (52, 56,64 and 80), Silver (60), Bronze (68,72).

(2). Wrestling event - Bronze (52, 2008, 2012), Silver (2012)

(3). Tennis Event - Bronze (96)

(4). Shooting event - Gold (2008), Silver (2004, 2012), Bronze (2012)

(5). Boxing Event - Bronze (2012), Silver (2008)

(6). Weightlifting - Bronze (2000)

(7). Badminton - Bronze (2012).

Also India had a no medal in 84,88 and 92 games and in 76 games.

Let us now see the possible medal hopefuls for this edition

Archery - Deepika Kumari and Team.

Two Events: Team and Individual - Expect medal from one.

Badminton - Saina Nehwal, Jwala Gutta - Ashwini Ponnapa

Two Events: Saina in singles and Jwala-Ashwini Doubles - Expect one from Saina.

Boxing - Vikas Krishnan - Possible Medal.

Gymnastics - Dipa Karmakar - Girl from Tripura will be having an impossible task but nevertheless she got rave reviews and appreciation from best in class which makes me bet on her for a medal.

Shooting - here comes the big list.

Abhinav Bindra, Gagan Narang, Jitu Rai, Mairaj Ahmad Khan and Manavjit Sandhu for men.

Apurvi Chandela, Ayonika paul and Heena Sidhu in women.

Atleast 4 medals in Shooting.

Tennis - Again doubles (Sania-boppana; Paes-Boppana)

Atleast one medal can be hoped for.

Weightlifting - Satish Sivalingam is an hopeful but medal lets hope.

Wrestling - Men and women together 2 medals can be of a hope.

Sandeep Tomar and Narsing Yadav (if he clears doping test) in Men.

Vinesh Phogat and Babita Kumari ( Cousin wrestlers) have a chance.

I have not included Hockey event just because of the draw and anything can be said only after group stages.

So lets hope for the best performance from our team in rio and of course they are getting indian cuisine for the first time so the team should be happy that they have what they want.

All the Best Team...

#KHELOINDIA #JEETOINDIA

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Venkat S