500 days to Paris

So we actually surpassed our previous best and had undoubtedly our best ever Olympics in the aberration year 2021 (finally) in Tokyo. Neeraj Chopra probably demonstrated to India's budding athletes that if you stay honest to your sport and give your best every time, fairytales do happen.

Nearing two years to that unbelievable high and exactly 500 days ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympics, and on a day when India's Olympic Queen P.V.Sindhu suffered her third consecutive first round loss from a major world tournament, the heart yearns for more. Yes, still and for even more.

But will Paris deliver or will Tokyo2020 remain an aberration in every possible sense? Only time will tell. Let's try and envision till then, once again as realistically as possible, as to exactly where we stand today.

The Badminton medal onus has now surely shifted to the doubles pairs. One of Sat-Chi or Gayatri-Teressa seem to be our best bets on current form. Singles no longer looks like a realistic expectation.

Today also saw the opening ceremony of the women's world boxing championships in New Delhi. The Indians at home looked fit and hungry to roar. However with both the women's and men's pugilists put together, we still have not moved beyond a couple of medal hopes where around 20 are the maximum that can be garnered.

In Athletics, Neeraj continues to be a contender naturally but a couple of long-jumpers answering to the names of Jeswin Aldrin and Murali Sreeshankar have raised some genuine hopes. Tejinder Toor is also around and is becoming an experienced international shot-putter. Athletes like Aishwarya Mishra and Shalini Singh have also made noises. Long very long calls still.

Hockey we continue to blow hot and cold and you still never know despite a tremendous run of four wins at home by a new-look team against the likes of Germany and Australia. Shooting continues also to be at you never know status.

In the others where we have traditionally hoped for Olympic medals, none including Archery, Golf, Tennis are any better hopes than they ever were.

The biggest tragedy at this point however is Wrestling, where things have come to a complete halt with India team selectees are not going for tournaments to represent their country. 

A double-digit medal haul should have been the bare minimum as a fan expectation after Tokyo2020. It will take huge work in 500-days to get there I think, although a meeting to discuss the same as already happened last month, which one has to admit, is an improvement from earlier times.