Rio 2016: India’s brightest Medal prospects

India is sending its largest ever contingent for the Rio Olympics this year with several medal prospects in its ranks.

Sania Nehwal - Discipline: Badminton. After battling injuries at the start of the year, Sania has endured a mixed season so far. She defended her Australian Open Superseries title and settled for a bronze at the Asian Championships. Saina won bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics. She is the only Indian shuttler to win an Olympic Medal.

PV Sindhu – Discipline: Badminton. World No 10 PV Sindhu has had an inconsistent run in the women’s singles in Badminton. Her lone title this year came in the Malaysia Masters and Macau title last year. PV Sindhu is the first ever women’s singles player to win a medal at the World Championships where she won the bronze in 2013 and 2014.

Srikanth Kidambi – Discipline: Badminton. He is the first Indian to win a Super Series men’s title in 2014 China Open Super Series. He clinched the Syed Modi International this year and won two more gold medals at the 2016 South Asian Games. He had also won Swiss Open Grand Prix and clinched the Indian Open Super Series. He also has a Thailand Open Grand Prix title to his credit.

Deepika Kumari – Discipline: Archery. One of India’s biggest medal hopes, Deepika Kumari had to settle for silver in the mixed recurve pair event at the Archery World Cup. Deepika qualified for the Rio Olympics after scoring 686/720 in the women’s recurve event at the World Cup in 2015. She is a former World No 1 ranked Archer in women’s recurve and won her first World Cup Gold in 2012. She also won a Gold Medal in the 2013 Archery World Cup and has 3 Silver Medals so far.

Bombayla Devi – Discipline: Archery. Bombayla won a silver medal in the team event at the World Cup this year. She won the Gold in the 2010 CWG in the recurve team event and has 12 podium finishes in World Cups and World Championships.

Laxmirani Manjhi – Discipline: Archery. She clinched a silver medal in the individual recurve event and the team event at the 2015 Archery World Championships.

Irfan Kolothum Thodi – Discipline: 20km racewalk. Irfan is the current Indian record holder who burst onto the scene of race walking after securing a tenth place finish at the London Olympics. He covered the 20km race in 1:22:19.

Tintu Luka – Discipline: Women’s 800m. She secured gold in the Asian Athletics Championships in the 800m event and won silver in the 4*400m relay. Tintu impressive record includes a silver medal at the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon and gold in the women’s 4*400m relay in the same competition, which also saw India clinch its fourth consecutive gold since 2002.

Vikas Gowda – Discipline: Discus. He had finished eighth place in London Games finals. He is the current national record holder and has two Asian Athletics gold medals to his credit. He also won gold at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

India’s Women Athletes in 2015

2015 was a great year for India’s Women Athletes, as they valued and ran into uncharted territories, secured Olympic Qualifications, and raked in the trophies. While it was a stupendous year for Sania Mirza, one in which she won a stellar nine titles with Martina Hingis, including two Grand Slams, and reached the top of the doubles world rankings, there were other Indian women too who made 2015 a year to remember. In their respective disciplines, these athletes broke new ground, took the world by surprise, and gave us something to look forward to in 2016, the year of the Olympics.

Lalita Babar: The daughter of a farmer, Babar broke the national steeplechase record thrice this year. The icing on the cake was becoming the first Indian to qualify for the final of a track event at the World Championships. For the Rio Olympics starting in August, Babar has two tickets – for the steeplechase and marathon.

Hockey Team: Indian Women Hockey Team was officially confirmed as participants for the 2016 Rio Olympics. For the Indian Women Hockey Team which has played at the Olympics only once before this, in 1980, on invitation, this is a watershed moment. Full of girls from small towns and whose popularity seems restricted to Shah Rukh Khan’s 2007 film ‘Chak De! India’, this is a telling goal scored just in time.

Dipika Pallikal: Pallikal began the year brightly, winning the Winnipeg Winter Club Open in February, but hit plenty of roadblocks midway through the season. Having failed to get past the first round in three previous events, Pallikal surged into the quarter-final of the prestigious US Open in October with a hard fought victory over World No. 5 Alison Waters. Pallikal also spoke openly about gender bias and refused to participate in the National Games since the prize money for male and female winners wasn’t the same.

PV Sindhu: She won Macau Open in February 2015 and beat World No. 1 Carolina Marin in Denmark Open.

Deepika Kumari: She went into the London Olympics in 2012 as the World No. 1 and made a first round exit. After two years, she overcame the shadow of failure & led the women recurve team to silver at the World Championships in Copenhagen, Denmark, booking them a ticket for Rio.

Apurvi Chandela: Part of the generation that was inspired by Abhinav Bindra’s gold at Beijing 2008, she has her sight set on the ultimate prize. She took the first step towards it by bagging bronze at the Changwon World Cup in April and qualifying for the Rio Olympics in the 10m air rifle event. She is the only shooter besides Jitu Rai to have booked a berth. She shot an impressive 206.9 to win Silver at the Munich World Cup in September.

Dipa Karmakar: Karmakar achieved the massive feat of becoming the first Indian to make it to the final of an event at the World Gymnastics Championships. She finished fifth in the final of the vault event, which means her chances of getting a wild card to compete in the Rio Olympics are pretty high.

Saina Nehwal: Last year, she had become the first Non-Chinese player to win the China Open Superseries. 2015 was the sting back in Nehwal game as she became the World No. 1 singles player, an astonishing feat in a sport dominated by the Chinese. Though Saina Nehwal had a few significant firsts to her name – like a world championship and an All England medal – the big titles eluded her. Expectations are high from her in 2016 Rio Olympics. 

Symbols of Women Power in India

The status of Women in India has been subject to many great changes over the past few millennia. History of Women in India has been eventful. In Modern India, women have held high offices in India including that of the Prime Minister, Chief Minister, Olympic Medal winner, an Astronaut, and to the CEOs. Women have done India proud in Sports where they were not counted for much.

If Kalpana Chawla is the first Indian Women to move in Space than Saina Nehwal is the first Indian to win a Superseries Premier Title and an Olympic Medal. These are no means of achievements in a country where people do not see beyond cricket and the place considered dangerous for girl child by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations.

There may not have been any biopics made on the two champion women yet like the one on boxer M.C. Mary Kom, portrayed by Actress Priyanka Chopra, but there have been any number of outstanding Athletes who have inspired generations of individuals sportswomen. There was a time women outshone men. Take P.T. Usha, Shiny Abraham, Anju Bobby George in athletics or Karnam Malleswari and Kunjarani Devi in weightlifting.

I would love to watch a biopic movie on Kalpana Chawla, portrayed by Deepika Padukone. From political world to business world, Indian Women proved themselves as the top performer and a good manager. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is really an inspiration for entrepreneurs and society in India. At the age of 62, when most people retire, she is managing director and chairman of Biocon Limited.

Past two-three years, we have seen many campaigns on YouTube around the world for women rights. HeForShe campaign by UN Women, #VogueEmpower in India, No Ceilings by Hilary Rodham Clinton aimed at measuring the progress of Women’s rights. This is symptomatic of the deep malaise where the female child in India has her role defined very early in life and sports hardly features, essentially because the need for education itself is stymied. To become a nation of equality, it requires a large effort not only by government but by every individual of a nation.