 "Paris Olympics 2024: India's campaign concludes on penultimate day with medal count currently at six")
India’s campaign at the 2024 Paris Olympics officially concluded on Saturday, the penultimate day of competitions, with Reetika Hooda bowing out of the women's 76 kg wrestling event with a quarter-final defeat and golfers Aditi Ashok and Diksha Dagar finishing a long way off from the medal positions.
Day 15 of the Paris Olympics was also supposed to witness the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) announce its verdict on wrestler Vinesh Phogat appeal against her disqualification from the women’s 50kg event after she was found to be overweight by the barest of margins. The verdict, however, has been postponed for now with Tuesday, 13 August set as the new deadline for the final announcement and Sunday, 11 August the final day for both parties to provide additional points in the form of documents, etc.
Paris Olympics: News, schedule, medals tally and more
Reetika, the final Indian athlete in action in the Paris, got her maiden Olympic campaign off to a winning start by defeating Hungary’s Bernadett Nagy 12-2. She would, however, lose her quarter-final bout against Kyrgyzstan’s Aiperi Medet Kyzy 1-1. Despite both wrestlers being tied on one point each, it was Kyzy who advanced to the semi-finals as according to the tie-breaker rule, she had scored the last technical point.
Hooda’s hopes of fighting for bronze via repechage went up in smoke later in the evening after Kyzy lost her semi-final bout against USA’s Alexis Blades 6-8.
With Hooda’s quarter-final exit, Aman Sehrawat’s bronze in the men’s 57kg event remains India’s only medal in wrestling so far as well as the sixth and final medal overall in the Paris Games — the Indian contingent winning as many medals as they did in the 2012 London Games.
Read | Paris Olympics 2024 Recap: Controversies to historic milestones
That, however, could change if Vinesh, who was found to be overweight by just 100 grams during her second weigh-in on Wednesday after passing the weight check the previous day, wins her appeal against her disqualification filed before CAS’s ad-hoc panel setup in Paris specially for the Olympics.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsIf Vinesh does end up with the joint-silver that she has asked for in her appeal, India’s tally will match that of their seven medals in Tokyo three years ago — their best till date, though they had won a gold and four bronze along with two silvers back then.
Meanwhile, in golf, Aditi Ashok and Diksha Dagar finished tied-29th and tied-49th respectively in the women’s individual stroke play event. It was a disappointing outcome for Ashok, who had finished fourth in Tokyo and narrowly missed out on a first-ever Olympic medal by an Indian golfer — male or female.
Dagar, on the other hand, managed to compete in the event despite meeting with an accident along with her family in Paris while returning from an event at the India House.
The closing ceremony of the 33rd Summer Olympics , in which Hollywood mega-star Tom Cruise will reportedly be involved in the official handover of the Games from Paris to Los Angeles, will have the shooter Manu Bhaker and hockey goalkeeper PR Sreejesh as the flagbearers leading the Indian contingent.
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