Just two days after India opened their account, ace shuttler P V Sindhu scripted history by becoming country’s first woman athlete to clinch an Olympic silver medal.
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On the other hand, Sindhu emerged to be India’s biggest star this year as she defeated higher-ranked opponents back-to-back before settling for a silver medal in the final against World No. 1 Carolina Marin.
Our sportspersons did perform well at the Rio Olympics considering the treatment and infrastructure given to the athletes in India. Along with Sakshi Malik, these women have become our idols.
World number 1 Carolina Marin might have defeated PV Sindhu in the women’s badminton gold medal match at the Rio Olympics but the new found love and admiration for India’s first individual female Olympic silver medalist Sindhu on Twitter shows she is the bigger victor of people’s hearts.
Tennis continued to have its share of controversies when Leander Paes, an 18-time Grand Slam doubles victor making a record seventh appearance, turned up late for the men’s doubles campaign with Rohan Bopanna. But the London Olympics bronze medallist failed to make an impression in any of them. Indian gymnast Dipa Karmakar went into Rio as the first female Indian gymnast to qualify for the Olympics, and went onto the final to become the first Indian gymnast to do so.
Among other countries, Team USA topped the Medals Tally with 121 medals followed by Great Britain (67) and China (70).
After her powerful quarterfinal performance, PV Sindhu had already made her mark, and had millions of Indians rooting for her to go for gold.
Meanwhile, American swimmer Michael Phelps continued his dominance of the pool as he extended his tally to a staggering 22 Olympic gold medals, to end his career with a total of 28 Olympic medals.
In 2012 India had secured their highest medal tally from a single Games – six, without a gold – and there were pre-Games projections by the Sports Authority of India that the tally will be doubled here.
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A number of world records were also broken at Rio.
