Paris (France): Ahead of his arrival in New Delhi from Paris on Saturday, 17th August, India’s Chef de Mission Gagan Narang hailed the Indian athletes' performance in the recently concluded Paris Olympic 2024. A total of 117 Indian athletes participated across 16 sports at the Paris Games and India ended their campaign with six medals – one silver and five bronze.
Although hopes were high to surpass the Tokyo medal tally of 1 gold, 2 silver and 4 bronze, Narang believes several takeaways from this Games can pave the way for a brighter future and a better medal haul in LA 2028. "Firstly, I congratulate the medal winners. A total of 6 medals (1 Silver, 5 Bronze) is a commendable effort," expressed Narang.
"Though, personally, I feel we could have finished with a few more medals, it is worth mentioning the near-misses. There were at least six 4th place finishes and quite a few of our athletes finished in the finals of their respective events. This is encouraging, and we should take heart from these results, introspect on the fine margins and how we can better these performances," Narang stated without mincing his words.
There were six near misses, reminding Indian sports fans of the agony from the Tokyo Olympics where the Indian Women’s Hockey Team finished a heart-break 4th place, yet won a billion hearts with their performance. Similarly, this time, shooter Arjun Babuta narrowly missed out on a medal in the men’s 10m air pistol, and in the mixed skeet event, Anantjeet Singh and Maheshwari Chauhan came close, losing the bronze to China by a mere one point.
Although Manu Bhaker gave India a roaring start to their campaign with back-to-back Bronze in women’s 10m air rifle and mixed event where she bagged a medal along with Sarabjot Singh, she narrowly missed adding a historic third medal in women’s 25m air pistol.
Meanwhile, the Indian archers Dhiraj Bommadevara and Ankita Bhakat lost to China in the mixed team event finishing fourth, thus recording India’s best-ever Olympic performance while Lakshya Sen made history as the first Indian shuttler to reach the semis in men’s badminton. Weightlifter Mirabai Chanu also missed out a podium finish by 1 Kg, and finished fourth.
"There are many learnings and takeaways from these performances in Paris. From what I saw at this Olympics, it’s only the small margins that we need to close in now to elevate this performance."
"I will be submitting my observations in an extensive report to the IOA and Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. While India has come a long way in the past decade, and we had a fully equipped medical team at the village with Dinshaw Pardiwala as CMO. We will grow from strength to strength to compete with USA and China in the future in sport science backup as well," Narang opined.
Increased participation should be the goal
In this new Olympic cycle, Narang emphasised that National Sports Federations (NSFs) should come up with a strategic roadmap to increase participation at the Olympic Games. "We must find ways to build a strong sports culture and increase the number of participations from India. That should be our goal for this new Olympic cycle. Also, most importantly I feel whilst we are teaching our athletes how to win, we must also teach them how to accept defeat and come back with a bang," stated the Padma Shri awardee.
Need to create a pathway for athletes
To further grow the sports culture in the country, Narang believes that collective efforts must be made to chart out an athlete’s career trajectory, which also includes long-term financial literacy, utilise the athlete’s experience by absorbing them into the system. He said, "To further the growth, collective efforts are being made and should be strengthened further to chart our athlete's career. We need to plan life after sport for an athlete so that their approach is long-term. Financial literacy, absorbing them into the system and utilizing their knowledge and experience, and creating job opportunities in district, state and national sports organizations as administrators and coaches should be a priority. Only then will parents and the athletes feel secure enough to pursue sport professionally and invest their time and efforts in it. We must also focus on athlete’s mental well-being, this is extremely critical for athletes to feel assured and that they are cared for."
Personal experience as Chef de Mission
From being an ace shooter, and having tasted Olympic glory himself, Gagan was playing a new role at the Olympic Games this time. About his personal experience as India’s Chef de Mission, he said, “It was a special, and memorable experience. There were also several challenges but we had unparalleled support from the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports as well as Govt of India who ensured our athletes had all possible support and anything we needed even in the last hour, was provided with. These Games were perhaps the best-coordinated effort across stakeholders and this in a way made my job easier," signed off Narang.
