How did India perform in the 2024 Paris Olympics, in which it bagged six medals, vis-à-vis the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2016 Rio Games? What gives hope for more medals and which state won the most medals for India?
In Greek mythology, Paris, after whom the French City of Love is named, was a skilled archer. India’s archery team didn’t hit the bull’s eye, but the Indian Olympic squad’s performance was commendable. For India, Paris Olympics was better than the 2016 Rio Olympics, when the country won just two medals. However, the tally of six this time — five bronzes and a silver — was sub-par when compared to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. There is more to the Olympics story when we look at the facts and numbers.
One of the unmistakable outcomes of this Olympic Games is the fourth-place finish by Indians. There were six fourth place finishes, which offer hope of a better show by bettering performances the next time.
Also, Haryana is the top state when it comes to winning medals for India. The state, with just 1.4% of India’s total land area, won four of the six medals, which translates to 66% of the haul.
Shooter Manu Bhaker won two bronze medals in this Olympics. This is the first since Independence and second in India’s Olympic history, if Norman Pritchard’s two silvers in the 1900 Paris Olympics are considered.
Bhaker won a medal in the women’s 10m air pistol and another for the 10m air pistol mixed team event along with Sarabjot Singh. Both the shooters are from Haryana. Neeraj Chopra won a silver medal in the Men’s Javelin Throw and Aman Sehrawat won a bronze in the Men’s 57kg freestyle event. They are from Haryana as well.
Haryana is 21st in terms of area in India, covering 44,212 square kilometres (17,070 square miles) or less than 1.4% of India’s total land area of 3,287,263 square kilometres.
Swapnil Kusale won a bronze medal for the Men’s 50m rifle 3 positions. Kusale is from Maharashtra.
So, two states — Haryana and Maharashtra — bagged the five individual medals for India.
The sixth medal came in group sports. India won a bronze in men’s field hockey. In the hockey team, nine out of the 17 players were from Punjab.
India is at 71st position in the medal tally among 84 countries that participated at the Paris Olympics 2024. But how does that translate to when read in contrast to our population?
INDIA HAS ONE MEDAL FOR 242 MILLION PEOPLE
The medal and population ratio reveals that there is a winner among the states in India.
In India, with a population of 1.45 billion, there is one medal for every 241.67 million people. But in the state of Haryana, there is one medal for every 7 million people. This is in contrast to one medal for every 125 million people in the state of Maharashtra.