Tokyo Olympics, India Full Schedule Day 1: All eyes on Deepika Kumar as Archers begin campaign

A five-year wait will come to an end when the Tokyo Olympics begins on Friday. The Games, originally scheduled to take place last year, was postponed because of the pandemic. Despite the virus threat looming large, the Olympics are finally going ahead this year. And this time, India have sent their largest ever contingent of more than 125 athletes to the Olympics with the hope of not only covering the disappointments of the Rio Games and but also going past their best-ever medal tally at the London Olympics in 2012.

Here is the full schedule of India on day 1 (July 23) of Olympics

Archery: Deepika Kumari in women’s individual ranking round at 5:30am IST

Archery: Atanu Das, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav in men’s individual ranking round at 9:30am IST

The quartet of Deepika Kumari, Atanu Das, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav entered the mega-event with renewed hopes of winning the country’s first Olympic medal in the sport.

Competing in her third successive Olympics, two-time world No. 1 Deepika has seen it all, from the lows of London to hitting rock-bottom at Rio 2016.

Five years down the line, the firebrand archer from Ranchi is in the form of her life having already won five World Cup gold medals in recent times.

Wiser and perhaps more daring, Deepika’s biggest challenge would be to overcome the Koreans, who are both mentally and physically strong.

Opening ceremony details

A total of 20 Indian athletes from seven sports and six officials will participate in the Olympics opening ceremony on Friday at 4:30 pm IST.

The list of 20 attendees include four paddlers, including Manika Batra and A Sharath Kamal, and as many sailing team members.

Lone fencer C A Bhavani Devi, gymnast Pranati Naik and swimmer Sajan Prakash besides as many as eight boxers will also be there. Apart from MC Mary Kom, who is also a flag-bearer alongside Manpreet, Lovlina Borgohain, Pooja Rani, Amit Panghal, Manish Kaushik, Ashish Kumar and Satish Kumar will participate in the ceremony.

Boxer MC Mary Kom and men’s hockey team captain Manpreet Singh will be India’s flag bearers in the event.

(With PTI inputs)