Neeraj Chopra’s javelin gold in Tokyo three years ago was very much a bolt from the blue. For decades, the idea of India winning a track-and-field medal had been a fanciful one. Norman Pritchard, representing British India, may have won silver in both the 200m and the now-defunct 200m hurdles at the Paris Olympics in 1900, but even his biographical details are lost in the mists of time.
Milkha Singh in the 400m at the Rome Olympics in 1960, and Gurbachan Singh Randhawa in the 110m hurdles in Tokyo four years later, excelled to reach their finals, but came nowhere close to gold. At the Montreal Olympics in 1976, Sriram Singh set a scorching pace for 500m before Alberto Juantorena, the Cuban giant, sped past on the back straight to win the 800m gold.
What Chopra’s historic throw in Tokyo did was raise expectations across the spectrum. As many as 29 athletes have gone to Paris, with several nursing ambitions of being the next Chopra.
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Chopra himself is on the mend after an adductor injury, and will face stiff competition from the likes of Germany’s Max Dehning, Jakub Vadlejch of the Czech Republic, and Finland’s Oliver Helander.
So, who are the other Indians with podium ambitions?
Jyothi Yarraji has improved the national record in the women’s 100m hurdles by nearly half a second in recent years, but her 12.78s places her 51st in the 2024 list, with as many as 17 women having dipped below 12.5s. That would suggest a struggle even to make the semi-finals. But the pressure of the Olympic stage has seen stranger things happen.
Back in 1992, Greece’s Paraskevi ‘Voula’ Patoulidou finished fourth in her heat, and third in the quarters and semis. A rank outsider, she saw off the challenge of the USA’s Gail Devers, the favourite, and Bulgaria’s Yordanka Donkova, the reigning champion and world-record holder, to win the final.
There is also cautious optimism about the men’s and women’s 4x400m relay teams. The men qualified second for the final at the World Championships in 2023, shattering the Asian record in the process. Muhammad Anas, Amoj Jacob, Muhammad Ajmal Variyathodi and Rajesh Ramesh finished fifth in the final, though they were in contention for a major part of the race.
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The women’s quartet took silver behind Bahrain at the Asian Games, where their time would have been enough for ninth place in the World Championship final. Neither squad is likely to win a medal, but just making the final would count as a monumental achievement in events where Asian teams seldom do well.
Praveen Chitravel and Abdulla Aboobacker are two of 24 athletes to have cleared 17m in the triple jump this year, but with a leap of over 17.5m likely to be required for a place on the podium, a medal of any description is unlikely.
In the men’s shot put, Tajinderpal Singh Toor’s season’s best of 20.38m is way short of what the USA’s Joe Kovacs threw in May (23.13m).
Kishore Jena threw a massive 87.54m while taking Asian Games javelin silver behind Chopra in Hangzhou last year. That would have been enough for Olympic silver in Tokyo, but the fact that he has barely cleared 80m this season is a real concern heading into Paris.
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