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 governmen🔯t 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 Olym🍌pic 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 t🅷he Indian Olympic Association President P T Usha.
"For catering to the requirements of the athletes, additional coa♛ches and other support staff numbering 72 have been approved at co🎶st 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 consi🐽sts 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 play💃ers.
Badminton will feature seven shuttles, 🐟including two-time Olympic medallist P V Sꩵindhu.
Wrestling, archery, and boxi𒊎ng will each have six re෴presentatives.
Golf will be represe🌊nted by 4 athletes, while tennis will have 3 playe🍷rs.
Swimming and sailing will each have 2 athletes, with equestrian, judo, rowing,ꦦ and we൩ightlifting each having 1 athlete.
Back in 2020 at the Tokyo Olympics, India were represented by a 119-mem﷽ber contingent, with which they claimed their best-ever haul of seven medals, including the historic javelin throw gold by Neeraj Chopra.
The P🍸aris 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)
