Tokyo Olympics 2021: A look at India's best medal hopes
With the sports world slowly clawing its way back to normalcy, all sports lovers would be looking forward to the Tokyo Olympics 2021. The mega-quadrennial Games got postponed by a year giving every athlete time to prepare well and set their sights on getting a highly coveted Olympic medal.
India has a good chance to secure a handful of medals this time. The Tokyo Olympics 2021 might still be months away but based on their performances in the past one year and a half, here are three athletes who are most likely to clinch medals for India from Tokyo Olympics 2021.
#1 Vinesh Phogat
Vinesh Phogat finished her 2016 Olympics campaign in Rio with a physical issue in the quarterfinals. Each progression of Vinesh Phogat from that point onward has been towards getting a much-coveted medal in Tokyo Olympics 2021.
Phogat won the gold in both the Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games in 2018 in the 50kg class before she chose to move to the 53kg classification a couple of months later. While many anticipated that she should require significant time in getting acclimatized to the category, the Haryana grappler proved everybody wrong.
She began 2019 with a bronze at the Asian Wrestling Championships and followed it up with gold at the Yasar Dogu International and Poland Open. She finished the year by clinching the Tokyo Olympics quota after a bronze medal at the 2019 World Wrestling Championships.
The 26-year-old has established her status as one of India's greatest Tokyo Olympics 2021 medal hopefuls by beginning 2020 with one more gold at the Rome Ranking Series.
#2 Bajrang Punia
Bajrang Punia had initially met India's 2012 Olympics bronze medallist and his idol Yogeshwar Dutt when he was just a 14-year-old. Even though Dutt was wiped out early in Rio, the veteran chose to guide Punia in his pursuit of an Olympic medal. They were richly rewarded when Bajrang Punia clinched the 2017 Asian Wrestling title.
Punia has since proceeded to win gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and the 2018 Asian Games. By securing a silver medal at the World Wrestling Championship a year ago, he confirmed his appearance in Tokyo Olympics 2021. He has kept his imperious form going with a gold at the Rome Ranking Series in 2020.
#3 Manu Bhaker
It was in 2017 that Manu Bhaker initially tasted glory on the big stage when she won a silver medal at the Asian Junior Championships that year. Bhaker continued her outstanding run with gold medals at the ISSF World Cup in Guadalajara, Mexico, and the 2018 Youth Olympics.
The 18-year-old Manu Bhaker proceeded to win four ISSF World Cup gold medals and a further two more yellow metals at the Asian Shooting Championships. 2019 was also the year when the 10m air pistol shooter booked an Olympic quota for Tokyo Olympics 2021 in the World Cup held in Munich.