It’s early days into the Olympic year, but what’s an Olympic year without a bunch of “way too early” predictions? India finished with seven medals at Tokyo and will head to the Paris Games with an assortment of Olympic medallists and world champions, each of them hungry to establish themselves at the world’s grandest sporting event.
With seven months to go for the 2024 Paris Olympics, here are ESPN India’s predictions on who will climb the podium.
[Note.- this gives us a chance to scream “We told you so!” when these athletes win a medal]
Neeraj Chopra
The most obvious choice, an absolute no-brainer. But what colour will the medal be? That’s when things get tricky. Neeraj is the world’s most consistent javelin thrower without a doubt, but he’s not the farthest thrower. That’s when the competition steps in: Johannes Vetter, Anderson Peters, Arshad Nadeem and Jakub Vadlejch – all four have thrown further than. But again, Neeraj has beaten each of these men.
What it ultimately boils down is how well you throw on the final day and Neeraj has done swimmingly well in that department so far. An 88.58m throw won him gold at Tokyo. Could he go further this time? Maybe join the elite 90m club? We dare to dream.
PV Sindhu
A medal at the Olympics would make Sindhu the first Indian ever to win three Olympic individual medals. But it does come across as a tough ask, especially considering the year Sindhu had in 2023. She made first-round exits in eight of the 19 tournaments she played and finished without a single title. Her best was a runner-up finish at the Madrid Masters back in March. She has battled injuries since her bronze at Tokyo and is currently recovering from a knee injury, but she will have to find a way past it all to climb the podium in Paris.
Nikhat Zareen
Nikhat was unbeaten for nearly two years until she lost in the Asian Games semifinal last year. That should pretty much tell you just how good she is. She is a two-time world champion, a Commonwealth Games champion and one of the sport’s most supreme boxers in her weight category. For long, she plied her trade under Mary Kom’s shadows. But now she is the favourite to one-up Mary and achieve something no Indian boxer has: win an Olympic gold.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty
If there’s anyone who can win India’s first Olympic gold in badminton, it’s Satwik and Chirag. The swashbuckling duo come into the Olympic year on the back of the best season of their careers: they won the Asian Games, Indonesia Open Super 1000, Badminton Asia Championships and attained the World #1 rank – each of these a first for Indian badminton.
Aged 23 and 26, this is a giant-slaying duo that plays a fearless style of badminton and fears no opposition. They bagged five titles in 2023, but also made four first-round and as many second-round exits. Remaining consistent will be their goal of the year, but if there’s one thing we know about this team, it’s that they turn it up a notch when they’re under pressure.
Indian men’s hockey team
Bronze in 2021, a different-colored medal in 2024? The Indian men’s hockey team got off to the worst possible start last year by finishing ninth in the World Cup India hosted. The future appeared bleak. But they regrouped well to remain undefeated and lift the Asian Champions Trophy and Asian Games trophies. The Asian Games triumph also sealed their berth at the Paris Games, giving them ample time to focus just on training without the worry of having to qualify.
The current team features a healthy mix of veteran stars and young blood and they play a refreshing brand of hockey, but will need to handle clutch situations better if they are to revive the golden days of Indian hockey.
Lovlina Borgohain
Lovlina was the only Indian boxer to clinch a medal at the Tokyo Olympics and will look to make it 2/2 at Paris. She has moved up a weight class from the 69kg to 75kg category and has shown plenty of promise: Lovlina is the world champion in the category and also an Asian Games silver medallist.
She had a bit of a lull post Tokyo but delivered when mattered the most in 2023 to prove her mettle. Lovlina has a chance to enter an elite club: to become the first Indian boxer to win multiple medals. Going by the form she has been in, that could very well become a reality.
Vinesh Phogat
A medal in Paris would cement Vinesh’s credentials as arguably India’s greatest female wrestler. Vinesh has been an Asian and Commonwealth champion [thrice, at that!] and won two bronzes at the World Championships, but an Olympic medal has eluded her in both her attempts. In 2016, she left the mat on a stretcher after hurting her knee and in 2021 she just was not good enough.
Going into 2024, the odds remain stacked against her: she is recovering from knee surgery, has not competed in nearly a year and remains one of the prominent faces of the protest against the wrestling administration. But unlike her compatriots Bajrang Punia and Sakshi Malik, she does not have an Olympic medal in her kitty. If she can put on blinkers and power herself to a medal, that would be nothing short of one of the greatest moments in India’s sporting history.
Mirabai Chanu
Mirabai would not want to look back at her 2023 – she was riddled with injuries and finished sixth at the Asian Weightlifting Championships, skipped the World Championships, before a fourth-place finish at the Asian Games. That last competition ended with her being lifted off the lifting platform after she injured her thigh.
It’s no lie that the Tokyo Olympics silver-medallist faces some ultra-strong competition in Paris – North Korea’s Ri Songgum [two-time Asian champion], China’s Jiang Huihua [four-time world champion] and reigning Olympic champion Hou Zhihui. But Mirabai can still medal if she matches her personal best, or even go beyond.
Sreeshankar Murali
This Indian long jumper was ranked world #4 in the list of best jumps in 2023. He’s hovered around the major medals but hasn’t quite delivered on the big stage yet. But based on his run last year, he’s well-placed to scale the podium in Paris. Sreeshankar won silver at the Asian Games and Asian Athletics Championships, but has struggled to replicate similar success at the world level. The pain of failure from the Tokyo Olympics continues to drive him and he’s taken a vow to not eat his favourite food parotta until he wins an Olympic medal.
It’s a proper high-quality field of competitors he is up against, but that should not prevent him from going all the way. All that he needs is to find his rhythm on the given day.
