Rio Olympics 2016 begins on August 5 and will go on till 21. More than 10,500 athletes from 206 National Olympic Committees (NOCs), including debutants Kosovo and South Sudan, will compete for 306 sets of medals, in 28 Olympic sports. These sporting events will take place at 33 venues in the host city and at five each in the cities of São Paulo (Brazil's largest city), Belo Horizonte, Salvador, Brasília (Brazil's capital), and Manaus.
India first participated at the Olympic Games in 1900 with a lone athlete (Norman Pritchard) winning two medals — both silver — in athletics. The nation first sent a team to the Summer Olympic Games in 1920, and has participated in every Summer Games since then. Indian athletes have won a total of 26 medals, all at the Summer Games. For a period of time, India national field hockey team was dominant in Olympic competitions, winning eleven medals in twelve Olympics between 1928 and 1980. The run included a total of 8 gold medals, including six successive gold medals from 1928–1956.
The 2012 London Olympics saw the best performance of India with 6 medals — 2 silver and 4 bronze, followed by Beijing in 2008, where India bagged its maiden individual gold.
The following are the categories in which India will be participating in Rio Olympics.
Gymnastics: Dipa Karmakar secured Rio ticket, and thus becoming the first Indian female gymnast to qualify for the quadrennial event. > Read more
Men's hockey: A spirited Indian men's hockey team defeated arch-rivals and defending champions Pakistan 4-2 in a nerve-wracking shoot-out to end its 16-year gold medal drought in the Asian Games and earned a direct berth to the 2016 Rio Olympics, in Incheon. >Read more
Women's hockey: The Indian women’s hockey team qualified for the 2016 Rio Games after a long wait of 36 years. >Read more
Badminton: Saina Nehwal is the current world number 2. The Indian badminton ace wants to be injury-free in the run-up to the Rio Olympics. >Read more.
K. Srikanth prepares for the forthcoming Rio Olympics with vigour. Kidambi Srikanth will play the Indonesian Open at Jakarta (May 30 - June 4) and Australian Open at Sydney (June 17 – 12) with the aim of winning sufficient points to get into the top eight men’s players of the world, which in turn will help him avoid the top four players until the quarterfinal stage of the Rio Olympics. >Read more
Ecstatic after becoming the first Indian men’s doubles pair to qualify for the Olympics, Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy are now looking to tighten their game and improve their fitness level ahead of the Rio Games in August. >Read more
Women’s doubles pairing of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa also made it to the Rio Olympics. >Read more
Tennis: For Rio Olympics 2016, till now, >Leander Paes and >Sania Mirza were qualified. Both Paes and Mirza will compete in the doubles category. >Read more
It is well-known that Leander Paes is the only tennis player to have won an individual bronze at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.
Rohan Bopanna cleared a lot of suspense with regard to India’s tennis entries for Rio Olympics, by reaching No. 10 in doubles ranking, but opted to stay quiet till the selectors announce the Indian squad on June 11. >Read more
>Have a look at our special on Leander Paes
Archery: A total of 4 archers have been qualified after having secured a top eight finish at the 2015 World Archery Championships. in Copenhagen, Denmark.The three-member women's team secured its berth by making it to the top eight in team recurve, while Mangal Singh Champia finished off in the top eight in individual recurve.
Atanu Das qualify for the Olympics. >Read more
Rowing: Indian rower Dattu Bhokanal has qualified for the Olympics in single sculls by virtue of his second place, in a field of 20 competitors, in the final of the FISA Asian and Oceania Olympic qualification regatta in Chungju (Korea), according to India’s chief National rowing coach Ismail Baig. >Read more
>Read Dattu Bhokanal interview
Athletics: 18 athletes have been qualified, out of which 10 are men and 8 women. They will compete in: For men marathon (three athletes), 50-km walk (2 athletes), 20-km walk, discuss throw (Vikas Gowda) and shot put (Inderjeet Singh). For women 3000m steeplechase (Lalita Babar and Sudha Singh) >Read more , marathon (2 athletes), 20-km walk (2 athletes), 800m (Tintu Luka), shotput (Manpreet Kaur).
Dutee Chand qualifies for Rio Olympics in 100m. >Read more
Three more Indians qualify. >Read more
Nirmala of Haryana became the first athlete from the ongoing senior National inter-state athletics meet to reach the Rio Olympics qualifying mark, when she clocked 51.48 in the women’s 400m. >Read more
Three track and field athletes, Renjith Maheswary (triple jump), Dharambir Singh (200m) and Jinson Johnson (800m) qualify for Rio Olympics. >Read more
Discus: Asian Games discus throw gold medal winner Seema Punia qualified for the Rio Olympics with a 62.62 m effort at the Pat Young’s Throwers Classic 2016 at Salinas (California) in the United States. >Read more
Boxing: Shiva Thapa is the only boxer qualify for Rio Olympics 2016 after five-time world champion Mary Kom got eliminated. He will compete in the bantemweight category. >Read more
Assured of an Olympic berth, Indian boxer Vikas Krishan (75kg) settled for a bronze medal in the International Boxing Association’s (AIBA) World Qualifying Tournament after he was ruled out of the semifinal clash owing to a cut on his forehead. >Read more
Shooting: The shooters qualified for Rio Olympics 2016 are: (men) Abhinav Bindra (10m air rifle), Kynan Chenai (trap), Mairaj Ahmad Khan (skeet), Prakash Nanjappa (50m pistol), Gagan Narang (10m air rifle, 50m rifle pistol prone, 50m rifle 3 positions), Jitu Rai (10m air pistol, 50m pistol), Chain Singh (50m rifle prone, 50m rifle 3 positions), Gurpreet Singh (10m air pirtol, 25m rapid fire pistol) and Manavjit Singh Sandhu (trap). In the women's division, Apurvi Chandela (10m air rifle), >Ayonika Paul (10m air rifle) and Heena Sidhu (10m air pistol and 25m pistol).
Weightlifting: Indian weightlifters earned two quota places for Rio Olympics — one each in men’s and women’s sections — at the recently-concluded Senior Asian Championships at Tashkent, Uzbekistan. >Read more
Table-tennis: The Indians who entered in the table-tennis category are (men) >Sharath Kamal Achanta and >Soumyajit Ghosh , ( women) >Mouma Das and >Manika Batra .
>Soumyajit Ghosh on his Rio preparations
Wrestling: Before finalising the preparatory camp, the federation is expected to decide whether it will hold a trial between Narsingh, a 2010 Commonwealth Games gold medallist who won an Olympic quota place by securing a bronze medal in the World championship in Las Vegas last year, and two-time Olympic medallist ansd former World champion Sushil Kumar. A trial between the two may set a precedent, and the WFI may receive similar requests in other weight categories as well. The WFI is examining all possible options to find a way to settle the issue amicably.
The 85kg Greco Roman grappler, Ravinder Khatri, and 53kg woman wrestler Babita Kumari will be considered eligible to compete in the Olympics due to doping violations by wrestlers of other countries.
Earlier, Sandeep Tomar (57kg) and Yogeshwar Dutt (65kg) and Narsingh Yadav (74kg) in freestyle, Hardeep (98kg) in Greco Roman and Vinesh Phogat (48kg) and Sakshi Malik (58kg) had qualified for the Olympics.
Swimming: Sajan Prakash and Shivani Katariya will represent India in the swimming events at the 2016 Olympic Games, the Swimming Federation of India announced. Kerala-born Sajan, 22, will swim in the men’s 200m butterfly while 18-year-old Shivani will compete in the women’s 200m freestyle. >Read more
Judo: Avtar Singh, who has become the first Indian judoka to qualify for the Olympics since 2004, is not nervous about doing well on the biggest stage of sports. > Read more
Golf: Anirban Lahiri, S.S.P. Chawrasia and woman golfer Aditi Ashok have been selected to represent the nation at Rio. >Read more
