With less than 10 days until the Paris Olympics 2024, the Sports Ministry has unveiled the list of the Indian athletes who are traveling to France for the big showdown. It clears out everything from the number of staff to the partcipants, except for one question - why Abha Khatua has been excluded. (More Sports news)
The final contingent for India in Paris as released by Indian Olympic Association (IOA) features 117 athletes and 140 support staff and officials. Among these, 72 individuals, have been approved with cost covered by the government to meet the requirements of the travelling sportspersons.
The only athlete excluded from the list is Abha Khatua, who qualified for the Games through a world rankings quota. IOA did not provide any reason for her omission from the World Athletics' list of Olympic participants a few days ago.
"The permissible limit for stay of support personnel in the Games Village against accreditation as per norms of the Paris Organising Committee for the 2024 Olympic Games is 67 including 11 IOA Contingent Officials, which includes five Medical Team Members," the sports ministry stated in a letter to the Indian Olympic Association President P T Usha.
"For catering to the requirements of the athletes, additional coaches and other support staff numbering 72 have been approved at cost to the Government and arrangements for their stay have been made in Hotels/in locations outside the Games Village," it added.
The largest group within the Indian contingent for the Paris Games 2024 consists of 29 members in Athletics (11 women and 18 men). Next comes shooting with 21 members, Hockey closely follows with 19 members.
In additon:
Table Tennis will be represented by eight players.
Badminton will feature seven shuttles, including two-time Olympic medallist P V Sindhu.
Wrestling, archery, and boxing will each have six representatives.
Golf will be represented by 4 athletes, while tennis will have 3 players.
Swimming and sailing will each have 2 athletes, with equestrian, judo, rowing, and weightlifting each having 1 athlete.
Back in 2020 at the Tokyo Olympics, India were represented by a 119-member contingent, with which they claimed their best-ever haul of seven medals, including the historic javelin throw gold by Neeraj Chopra.
The Paris Olympic Games 2024 will kickoff on July 27, Saturday and the opening ceremony will take place on Friday, 26 July. The events will be live streamed on the JioCinema app and website. Fans can catch the live telecast Paris Olympics on Sports 18 TV channels.
(With PTI Input)
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