India Athletes Preparations Ahead Of 2024 Olympics

Less than 2 months are left before the Paris Olympics, which will start on July 26 in Paris, the capital city of France. You might not know this will be the third Olympics that will be hosted by Paris after the 1900 and 1924 Olympics and no doubt the preparations of the Indian team will be very high after securing 7 medals in 2020 Tokyo Olympics of which 1 was Gold, 2 silver and 4 Bronze Medals. Let’s look at the preparation of the Indian Athlete for the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympics. 

India performed brilliantly in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, where Indian Athlete Neeraj Chopra was the hero for the Indian team after winning Gold Medal for India in the Javelin throw. However, India's preparations will be tested in Paris 2024 Olympics.

The Qualification window is just going to close, where 13 Indian athletes have already made it into the qualification standard for Paris Olympics and out of 13, 7 are men who have qualified for 20km race walk event naming, Akshdeep Singh, Vikas Singh, Paramjeet Bisht, Suraj Panwar, Servin Sebastian, Arshpreet Singh and Ram Baboo. But the problem is a country can only be allowed to field a maximum of three athletes in each event there might be a chance that the Athletics Federation of India would go with a shortlist, of good performances on the international stage.

Athletes like Suraj Panwar, Ram Baboo, Vikash Singh, Servin S, and Arshpreet Singh will be seen competing at the World Athletics Race Walking Team Championships in Antalya, Turkiye.

Talking about the 7 men who have qualified for 20km race walk event excluding, Vikas Singh and Paramjeet Bisht, the remaining Athletes have best personal timing this year, which also includes Akshdeep Singh’s 1:19:38 mark at the Indian Open in Chandigarh. Apart from Akashdeep Singh, Ram Baboo, who is a national record holder and an Asian Games bronze medallist in men's 35 km will also be there in Paris Olympics 2024.

Not only that, the Indian team also has KT Irfan, Sandeep Kumar and Rahul Rohilla, who will represent India in men’s race walk at Tokyo 2020. Meanwhile, in women's 20 km race walk, Priyanka Goswami will be set to compete in her second Olympics after Tokyo 2020. This Indian Athlete also holds India's national record for 1:28:45 in the event, clocking her season’s best time of 1:29:48 to finish seventh at the Chinese Race Walking Grand Prix in Taicang. However, it was his third-best mark in her career.

Apart from Goswami India's Bhawna Jat (world No. 54) and Munita Prajapati (53) also have a fighting chance to qualify for Paris 2024.

The Golden Arm Boy From India

It would not be wrong to say that Neeraj Chopra is the greatest  Olympic Gold Medalist of India  after winning a Gold in Javelin and this time the expectations will be very high for him to defend his crown in the upcoming 2024 Olympics. However, after Tokyo 2020 Neeraj won the Diamond League trophy in 2022, became the world champion in 2023 and successfully defended his Asian Games crown at Hangzhou.

Before travelling to Paris for the 2024 Olympics, Neeraj will be seen in the Doha Diamond League on May 10 and his entry in the Paavo Nurmi Games, a World Athletics Continental Tour Gold level event in Finland on June 18. It will help Neeraj to get prepared before the main event, where he will be seen defending his title.

Neeraj Chopra, who holds the Indian national record, will be aiming to break his personal best record of 89.94m to get the psychological barrier out of the way as the Men's javelin throw field at Paris 2024 is expected to have multiple members of the 90+ club, which includes Tokyo 2020 silver medallist Jakub Vadlejch of Czechia, Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem, former world champion Anderson Peters and Germany’s Max Dehning.

Max Dehning has recently become the only youngest Javelin thrower to cross the 90m mark at the German Winter Throwing Championships in Werferzentrum Brandberge. The 19-year-old boy, who has thrown 90.20m is still the world-leading javelin throw this year.

Along with Neeraj Chopra in search of Gold in Paris, Manu DP and Kishore Jena will also join him after finishing with a silver medal in  Hangzhou Asian Games last year. Jena will also start his in Doha. 

Neeraj Chopra has also praised Kishore Jena for his performance and improvement saying, " It's commendable the way Kishore has shown progress, especially at the big stages like the World Championships and Asian Games, and the way he has improved his distance,”