Paris Olympics 2024: Countries with most medals, India’s haul and more

Paris Olympics 2024: India's Olympic journey, medal history, and recent success, including first gold in track and field athletics in 2020. Read more updates on The Hindu

India has participated in the Olympics since 1900, initially as British India and then after independence, as the Republic of India. It has won 35 medals in total.

The country’s medal haul has significantly improved in recent years. Consider this. It took 21 editions of the Games from 1900 to 2004 for the country to win 17 medals. The same number of medals have been won in just the past three editions.

India has won medals in eight sports disciplines. It has won gold in three - hockey, athletics and shooting. In 2020, Neeraj Chopra became the first Indian athlete to win a gold in track and field athletics. His win ended India’s medal drought in the discipline after 23 editions, since the 1900 Games.

In 2008, Abhinav Bhindra won a gold in 10m Air Rifle event. He brought in India’s first gold in shooting.

In field hockey, India has a total of 12 medals and is the leading nation. Its most successful years were between 1928 to 1964, when the team won six successive golds. India’s hockey players were known for their innovative stick work, so much so that in 1956, their dribbling technique got its own name - the ‘Indian dribble’. It involves passing the ball left and right in quick movements while the player keeps moving. The technique was novel in 1956, and now, it is a fundamental hockey skill adopted worldwide.

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Parallel to the increasing medal haul, India has sent more athletes to the Games in recent times, up from 86 candidates in 1948 to 117 this year. This number remained the highest for independent India till 2012. However, in the last three editions, more than a 100 Indian athletes have gone to the Games. Since 2012, the proportion of women athletes has increased from around 27% to 40% or more.