Olympic Gold Medalist in India: List of Indian athletes to win a gold medal at the Olympics ft. Abhinav Bindra & Neeraj Chopra
With the Paris Olympics 2024 over, Indian fans' biggest regret is Neeraj Chopra failing to defend his gold medal. Since first appearing (as British India) in the 1900 Paris Olympics, India has won 41 medals across 26 Olympic Games—and that includes 10 gold medals.
Of those 10 gold medals, eight have been won by the Indian men’s hockey team between the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics and the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games. The Indian national hockey team dominated the sports from the twenties till the mid-fifties.
Led by the legendary Dhyan Chand, the team became the first Olympic gold medalist in India at Amsterdam, scoring 29 goals without reply.
India's dominance continued at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, where it defeated the United States and Japan while scoring 35 goals. Four years later, at the Berlin Olympic Games 1936, Dhyan Chand won a hat-trick of gold medals, defeating Nazi Germany in the final.
After the country’s independence in 1947, India continued its dominance in the field of hockey. Padma Shri awardee Kishan Lal's side earned India its fourth Olympic gold by beating hosts Great Britain at the 1948 London Olympics.
India followed that up with golds at the next two consecutive Olympic Games in Helsinki and Melbourne. After losing the gold to Pakistan in the Rome Olympics in 1960, India roared back in 1964 Tokyo by defeating Pakistan in the final match to win the gold medal.
After a period of lukewarm performances at the Olympic Games, resulting in just two bronze medals, the hockey team made a comeback by defeating Spain in the finals of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games to clinch a gold.
The individual gold medal drought continued for India until the Beijing Olympics 2008 when ace shooter Abhinav Bindra made history by becoming the first Indian to win an individual gold medal at the Olympic Games.
India’s star javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra followed Bindra’s footsteps and made the country proud by winning its first gold medal in track and field events at the Tokyo Olympics 2020.
Full list of Olympic gold medalist in India