Paris Olympics fact box: Youngest and oldest Indian athlete, best medal hopes, athletics largest contingent

At the Tokyo Olympics, India returned with seven medals - their best-ever medal haul at the Games. Will they be able to better that and touch double figures for the first time? The expectations are surely there. Are they realistic? That is the question that the 117-strong Indian contingent needs to answer. Except for wrestlers, who have waded through a highly controversial build-up, athletes in all disciplines have had no complaints about their preparations. Neeraj Chopra is one of India's biggest medal hopes in Paris(PTI)

Whether it was training abroad or getting the best of facilities to sharpen their skills, there was planning in place. But will the hard work, the strategies and the unbridled support translate into medals?

As the answer unfolds gradually over the next 15 days, we put together a fact file about India's Paris contingent.

Second largest contingent: With 117 athletes - 70 male and 47 female - in Paris, this is India's second-largest at the Olympics. In Tokyo, they had 121. If the Women's hockey team hadn't failed to qualify for this Games, they would have easily beaten their best-ever mark created in the previous Games.

16 events for India: Out of the 32 disciplines in the Tokyo Olympics, India will participate in 16 – Archery, athletics, badminton, boxing, equestrian, golf, hockey, judo, rowing, sailing, shooting, swimming, table tennis, tennis, wrestling and weightlifting.

Shooting and athletics rule: India's largest contingent is reserved for athletics. As many as 29 athletes are slated to participate in different athletics disciplines at the Paris Olympics. The second largest contingent belongs to shooting. There are 21 shooters in Paris - the most ever for India in shooting at the Games.

The first-timers: Out of the 117 members of the Indian contingent, 72 will play their first Olympics.

The veterans: Paddler Sharath Kamal is the most experienced Indian athlete in Paris at the moment. The Paris Olympics will mark his fifth appearance in the table tennis discipline at the Games. The multiple Commonwealth Games and Asian Games medalist is chasing an Olympic medal. Tennis veteran Rohan Bopanna, badminton ace PV Sindhu, and paddler Manika Batra, weightlifter Mirabai Chanu will play their third Olympics this year.

The youngest and the oldest: At 44, Rohan Bopanna is the oldest athlete in the Indian contingent. He is making a comeback at the Games after missing the Tokyo Olympics three years ago. 14-year-old Dhinidhi Desinghu is the youngest member of the Indian contingent. She will compete in the 200m freestyle swimming event, having already represented India at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games.

The medal history: Overall, India has won 35 medals so far, of which 12 have come from team sports, while 134 athletes from the country have won an Olympic medal (individually or as part of the team). Out of them, 37 Indians have won more than one Olympic medal in team sports and three have won multiple medals individually.

Multiple medalists: India have only three athletes who have won multiple medals at the Olympic Games. Norman Pritchard, Sushil Kumar and PV Sindhu. Sindhu is the only one who can be the first Indian to win three Olympic medals in individual events if she finishes on the podium in Paris.

The Olympic medalists in Paris: The Indian contingent features five previous medalists – Neeraj Chopra, Mirabai Chanu, PV Sindhu, Lovlina Borgohain, and the men's hockey team.

India's medal hopes in Paris: Neeraj Chopra in javelin, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty in men's doubles badminton, PV Sindhu in women's singles badminton, Indian women's archery team, Indian men's archery team, Indian men's hockey team, Sift Kaur Samra in shooting, Manu Bhaker in shooting, Nikhat Zareen in boxing, Antim Panghal in wrestling are India's biggest hopes for a medal in Paris.

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