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Tokyo 2020

4 Women, 5 Olympic medals - The super girl power rages on at the Games

Since the 2016 Rio Olympics, India has been seeing its women go fetch the hardware at the grandest sporting stage and the tradition continues at Tokyo Olympics as well.

Sakshi Malik, PV Sindhu, Lovlina Borgohain and Mirabai Chanu
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Sakshi Malik, PV Sindhu, Lovlina Borgohain and Mirabai Chanu 

By

The Bridge Desk

Updated: 1 Aug 2021 2:01 PM GMT

On the greatest and grandest stage of sport - the Olympic Games, Indian women have been really shaking things up as for the past 2 editions - the 2016 Rio Olympics and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, India has seen an all-girls show going on with 5 medals coming to them and behind it lies the she-power of 4 extraordinary women!

From being an arena where women were not even allowed to participate in, the Olympics have come a long way and over the years, we have seen remarkably successful female Olympians being produced. Closer home, in a country steeped with prejudices against women, especially those involved in sports, still, it is a matter of great pride to see how the country is being towed up the Olympic ladder courtesy its women power!

Women power redefined at the Olympic Games


#1 PV Sindhu - 2016 Rio Olympics silver medallist, 2020 Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist


PV Sindhu

While we are talking of superwomen, PV Sindhu has surely proved why she is one of the greatest as she has medalled not only once, but twice, in consecutive editions of the Olympics. With a silver medal in her debut outing where she lost to Spain's Carolina Marin in a gruelling final at the Rio Olympics, PV Sindhu was keen on upgrading the silver to a gold in Tokyo. However, Chinese Taipei's World No. 1 Tai Tzu-ying played spoilsport to her gold medal plans. Soon, PV Sindhu re-set herself and went for the bronze and clinched it in pure passion, defeating He Bingjiao in straight games. With this rave victory, Sindhu becomes the first Indian woman to win 2 medals at the Olympics and second Indian, after Sushil Kumar to achieve this feat.



#2 Lovlina Borgohain - 2020 Tokyo Olympics (medal colour yet to be decided)


Lovlina Borgohain

Debutant Lovlina Borgohain (69kg) assured India of their first boxing medal at the ongoing Olympic Games when she upstaged former world champion Nien-Chin Chen of Chinese Taipei to enter the semifinals of the Tokyo Olympics. The 23-year-old Assamese boxer prevailed 4-1 to make the last-four where she will square off against reigning world champion Busenaz Surmeneli of Turkey, who hammered Ukraine's Anna Lysenko in her quarterfinal bout. Borgohain, a two-time world championship bronze-medallist, displayed tremendous calm in the face of a plucky opponent, who had beaten her in the past. While her medal colour is yet to be decided, she has become the first medallist from Assam and of course, it had to be a woman, in keeping with the trend, no?


#3 Mirabai Chanu - 2020 Tokyo Olympics silver medallist

Mirabai Chanu

India's pride and hope, Mirabai Chanu lived up to expectations and brought home the country's first medal at the Tokyo Olympics, winning the silver, competing against the best in the world. The Manipuri magician pulled out all the stops and showed her grit and grind to come out with a near-perfect score apart from a single failed attempt when she tried lifting 89 kgs. Barely 5 feet, Chanu managed to keep her poise and persevere while showing the immense work put in to get her into peak condition while also showing off her amazing core strength. Mirabai came into her own with her speciality Clean and Jerk, where she guaranteed a silver medal with her first lift.


#4 Sakshi Malik - 2016 Rio Olympics bronze medallist


Sakshi Malik

The first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal in wrestling, Sakshi Malik achieved this feat during the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games. Competing in the 58kg category, a 23 year old Malik clinched bronze medal for India. Malik started off well registering back to back wins in the round of 32 and round of 16 against Sweden's Johanna Mattsson and Moldovan Mariana Cherdivara to enter the quarterfinals. In the quarterfinals, Malik lost to eventual champion from Russia Valeria Koblova. In the repechage she defeated the Mongolian Pürevdorjiin Orkhon in her first bout, before registering a 8-5 come from behind victory over Aisuluu Tynybekova of Kyrgyzstan to grab the bronze medal.

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