Paris 2024: All Indian athletes to qualify for the Olympics

Over the past few editions, the number of Indian athletes at the Olympic Summer Games has steadily increased.

At Tokyo 2020, the Indian contingent was made up of 124 athletes, the largest that the country had sent to the Games. India also won seven medals, their biggest haul in a single Olympics - including Neeraj Chopra’s historic gold medal in the men’s javelin throw.

At the Paris 2024 Olympics, 117 athletes made up the Indian contingent in 16 sports disciplines, comprising of 70 men and 47 women. The contingent competed in 69 events for 95 medals.

Tennis star Rohan Bopanna at 44 was the oldest athlete to represent India at Paris 2024 while swimmer Dhinidhi Desinghu at 14 was the youngest competitor. Athletics was the largest contributor to the Indian contingent with 29 athletes.

Trap shooter Bhowneesh Mendiratta won India’s first Paris 2024 quota at the 2022 ISSF World Championships but could not make the cut for the final team following national trials. Prithviraj Tondaiman was awarded the quota in the men's trap event instead.

Indian shooters, in fact, went on to secure a quota in every Olympic shooting category for the first time.

The National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) also exchanged one of the pistol quotas for a women’s trap shooter after Manu Bhaker had topped the national trials in the women’s 10m air pistol and the women’s 25m pistol. The freed up quota went to Shreyasi Singh, who competed in the women's trap event.

Rudrankksh Patil, who obtained a men's 10m air rifle shooting quota for India during the qualifying period, could not make it to the final team either. Sandeep Singh took his place following the national trials. Similarly, Tilottama Sen, Akhil Sheoran, Mehuli Ghosh, Shriyanka Sadangi, Varun Tomar and Palak Gulia, who all obtained quota in their respective events, also missed out.

In sports like shooting and wrestling, quotas are won by countries and not individual athletes. This means the athlete who clinched the quota can be replaced by another, leading up to the Games.

Race walkers Priyanka Goswami and Akshdeep Singh, meanwhile, were the first Indians to qualify for athletics events at Paris 2024.

In the men's 20km race walk, four Indian athletes breached the Paris Olympics qualifying standard while one made the cut via the world rankings route.

However, since each national federation could send a maximum of three athletes in the event to the Olympics, Akshdeep Singh, Vikash Singh and Paramjeet Singh Bisht were selected with Ram Baboo missing out.

While Priyanka and Akshdeep secured a quota for India in the marathon race walk mixed relay event, Suraj was the one who partnered Priyanka in Paris.

Achieving the entry standard or securing a quota was just one part of the Olympic qualification process. National Olympic Committees had the final say as to who will be selected to the NOC team for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Murali Sreeshankar managed to breach the qualifying standard in the men's long jump but did not travel to Paris as a knee injury ruled him out for the entire 2024 season.

India reclaimed the boxing quota in the women’s 57kg via Jaismine Lamboria at the Olympic qualifiers in Bangkok in June after original quota-holder Parveen Hooda, who had booked the slot at the 2023 Asian Games, was suspended for whereabouts failures.

In badminton, players made the cut based on rankings.

Click here to see the official qualification system for each sport.

Here is a comprehensive list of all the Indians who booked a spot for Paris 2024.

Indian athletes to qualify for Paris 2024 Olympics

Indian men's hockey team: PR Sreejesh, Jarmanpreet Singh, Amit Rohidas, Harmanpreet Singh, Sumit, Sanjay, Rajkumar Pal, Shamsher Singh, Manpreet Singh, Hardik Singh, Vivek Sagar Prasad, Abhishek, Sukhjeet Singh, Lalit Kumar Upadhyay, Mandeep Singh, Gurjant Singh. Alternate players: Nilakanta Sharma, Jugraj Singh, Krishan Bahadur Pathak

Table tennis reserves: Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, Ayhika Mukherjee