A contingent of 69 men and 55 women players from India will participate in the Tokyo Olympics. This will be the second consecutive Olympics in which more than 50 women will participate from India. In the Rio Olympics (2016), 54 female athletes from the country took part. These figures show that the power of Indian women in sports is increasing. In the last few years, the difference in this matter can be gauged from the fact that India participated in 17 Olympics from 1900 to 1988 and in which only 44 women participated from the country.
India has participated in 24 Olympic Games so far. Not a single woman from the country participated in 9 of these. These include 5 pre-independence (1900, 1920, 1928, 1932, 1936) and 4 post-independence Olympic Games (1948, 1960, 1968, and 1976). Apart from these, in 3 Olympic Games (1956, 1964, and 1972), only 1-1 female athletes from India could participate in the Olympics.
From India till 2016, 10 or more women could take part in only 7 Olympic Games. This happened for the first time in 1980. However, that Olympics in Moscow was boycotted by more than 60 countries of the US-led bloc. Indian women athletes benefited from this. The boycott of the Soviet bloc in 1984 gave 10 Indian women a chance. In 1988, 1992, and 1996, the representation of Indian women was in single digits.
The position of Indian women in terms of participation in the Olympics has improved since the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Then 19 Indian women took part in this mega event. In 2004 and 2008, 25-25 Indian women went to the Olympics. In 2012, 23 women of the country played in the Olympics. Since 2016 the figure is going beyond 50.
Indian women are now giving equal competition to men not only in the Olympics but also in winning medals. In the last two Olympic Games, India won a total of 8 medals. Of these, 4 medals were given by women. In the Rio Olympics (2016), both India's medals were won by female players (PV Sindhu and Sakshi Malik). A total of 5 medals have been won by female athletes from India. It was started by weightlifter Karnam Malleswari at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
The US and China are the biggest powers in the Olympics to date. Women have a big hand behind their success too. Women won more medals than men for both the US and China at the last Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro (2016). For America, the men won 56 medals, including 18 gold. At the same time, women won 61 medals including 27 gold. For China, the men won 28 medals including 12 gold. At the same time, women won 41 medals including 14 gold.
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