We are staring right at the face of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. According to the Tokyo Olympics Schedule, it is set to begin on 24th July. And once again the entire nation is hopeful for our athletes who have been giving their all to bring home pride and perhaps a few medals along the way.
India hasn’t quite been able to be table toppers at the Olympics so far. The 2016 Rio Olympics was no different for the Indian contingent where even though our athletes were successful to impress the world with the exceptional exhibition of their talents, they failed when it came to amassing medals. India finished with just two medals as ace shuttler PV Sindhu and wrestler Sakshi Malik were the only medalists.
One of the leading sports analytics company, Gracenote Sports, has recently released their prediction on India’s performance in the coming Tokyo Olympics 2020. Gracenote Sports is a leader in supplying statistical analysis and data for sports leagues around the world. It has predicted India to win 14 medals at the Tokyo Olympics. The breakdown of the medals being 1 gold, 5 silver and eight bronze.
But again, for the 2016 Olympics, Gracenote predicted India’s medal tally to be a grand total of five. Which included a gold and four bronze medals? But when it all came down, PV Sindhu won silver and Sakshi won a bronze medal.
At the London Olympics 2012, India put their best-ever display at the Olympics. The nation ended up winning six medals. Post Too Olympics, Indian athletes have put up quite a show at the world stage. Especially, at the 2018 Asian Games, which was India’s most successful campaign at a continental showpiece event with 70 medals (16 gold, 23 silver and 31 bronze).
India’s performance at the 2018 Commonwealth Games is also commendable as this was their third-best performance ever and second-best outside India at the Commonwealth Games. India was able to accumulate 66 medals in total at the event (26 gold, 20 silver, 20 silver).
If we try to work out the math and try to predict India’s medal tally at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to the closest and with absolute surety, there is still one variable we have to take into account. Olympics is still a little over 6 months away at the time of writing of this article. There are too many unpredictable events which may influence India’s 2020 Olympics hopes such as dip in form or even injuries.
Experts are hopeful of at least 3 medals for India from shooting itself. The events being the 10m air rifle women, 10m air pistol men and 10m air pistol/ air rifle mixed team event. Bajrang Punia, Pooja Dhanda and Vinesh Phogat have also stirred expectations of at least 2 medals in wrestling. Even if we take minimums into account, we can still bank on another medal from any of the following events: weightlifting, athletics and boxing.
We can also be assured of at least one medal from the badminton contingent and anything short of that will be surprising. With the likes of Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu bringing experience to the national badminton team the doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty has also become a favorite recently.
To sum it all up, we can safely say we can expect 7 medals at the least to reflect against India in the Tokyo Olympics medal tally. And, if we take optimism into account, we can definitely shoot for even 10 medals. Call it superstition but we as Indians definitely don’t want to discuss the nature of the medals as we always hope for the best. Jinxing it all by restricting hopes or over-aspiring is a definite possibility.
