PARIS 2024 might not go down as India’s best-ever Olympics. Yet, it was historic no less. For the first time in the 100-plus years of the country sending its athletes to the biggest sporting event, India had a multiple-medal winner at a single Olympics.
On Saturday, the athlete who pulled off the previously-unthinkable feat, Manu Bhaker, will be the guest at the Express Adda in New Delhi. Joining the 22-year-old will be world champion, Tokyo Olympics bronze winner and Asian Games medallist boxer Lovlina Borgohain, a trailblazer in her own right. They will be in conversation with Mihir Vasavda, Deputy Associate Editor, The Indian Express, who has covered three Olympics apart from three Commonwealth Games.
The athletes have been at the centre of a change in Indian sport, becoming two of the faces of the rising women power not just in their discipline but the whole ecosystem.
Three years ago in Tokyo, Lovlina — inspired by Mohammad Ali — ensured India’s return to the Olympic podium in boxing after a barren Rio Games. In doing so, the 26-year-old became only the second Indian woman to win a boxing medal after the legendary M C Mary Kom.
Lovlina went from strength-to-strength in the years that followed, despite being forced to change her weight category due to the rules of the international federation. She became a world champion on home soil last year and followed it up with a silver medal at the Asian Games in China. At the Paris Olympics, she came close to repeating her Tokyo show but lost in the quarterfinals.
If Lovlina won a medal in Tokyo and could not in Paris, it was the other way round for Manu. The Tokyo Olympics for her ended in tears. Back then, Manu competed in the three events — 10m air pistol, 25m pistol and 10m air pistol mixed team. However, the shooter could not qualify for the final in any of the events.
Heading into the Paris Games, her coach Jaspal Rana vouched that the preparation had been better and she had “matured” as a shooter. That was seen on the shooting ranges of Chateauroux, some 300 km from Paris. Manu not just reached the final of all her events, but she showed it is possible to win not one but two medals in a single campaign. With some luck, it could have been an unprecedented hat-trick.
Out of the six medals India won, Manu was responsible for two — both bronze, in the 10m air pistol and 10m air pistol mixed team, along with Sarabjot Singh.
As India’s athletes put the Paris Games beyond them and shift their focus to the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, Manu and Lovlina will remain the favourites to return to the podium.
The Express Adda is a series of informal interactions organised by The Indian Express Group and features those at the centre of change. Previous guests at the Adda include External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran, Olympic gold medallist javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra, cricket icons Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah and chess legend Viswanathan Anand.
