An Olympics medal prediction website predicts 15 medals for India

Olympic medals prediction.com predicts India to bag 15 medals in all in the upcoming 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Given that India is sending the largest contingent it has ever managed to send, the tally of 3 gold medals, five silvers and seven bronze medals seems a little meagre.

Here is a closer look at the categories and players mentioned:

1. Shooting:

it has been unanimously acknowledged throughout the country that the shooting team is the greatest medal hope in the country. Besides being filled with competent individual shooters, the team gels well together and is expected to put on a great show.

The website shows the 10 m Air Rifle Mixed team comprising Divyansh Singh Panwar and Elavenil Valarivan, 10 m Air Pistol team comprising Saurabh Chaudhary and Manu Bhakar and Elavenil Valarivan in the 10m Air Rifle as India's only prospects for gold medals.

While Chaudhary and Bhakar have dominated the event since its inclusion in World Cups, these seem to be on point; Elavenil and Divyansh have done well individually in Croatia. The Rifle shooting duo has been the top shooters in the World since 2019, winning the ISSF World Cup in the mixed team event.

The website also expects Elavenil to win a gold individually in the 10m Air Rifle shooting event and Divyash to bag a silver in the same category. Abhishek Verma is expected to win a silver in the 10m air pistol category, and Manu Bhaker is expected to bag a bronze in the same category.

Given the kind of form that these shooters have been in, this should be possible; however, maybe a silver can turn into gold and bronze into silver with a little bit of luck. Talking of this contingent of shooters, former Olympian Gagan Narang seemed hopeful, praising their mentality of going for the medal, especially Elavenil, whom he hailed as a protege.

2. Archery:

The website lists the three-member archery men team as one of the prime contenders for a silver medal. However, there might be a possibility of doing better, especially if Deepika Kumari can control the individual archery event. True, her performances in the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Olympics were not great and yet, she has been doing exceptionally good in the lead up to the Olympics.

She has regained her World no one rank and will be raring to go and get a gold for India. Accompany her in her pursuit in the mixed team event will be husband Atanu Das, and given the support of the entire team, Deepika might be able to bag a title in the mixed team event and, hopefully, a gold.

3. Wrestling:

This sport has almost always presented India with medals since 2009. This time too, India is sending in a strong contingent with four seeded players, all of whom has been listed as potential medal winners by the website. According to the website, while Bajrang Punia, Ravi Kumar and Vinesh Phogat have been listed as potential bronze winners, Deepak Punia might win a silver.

Bajrang and Deepak are seeded 2nd in the world rankings in the 65kgs and the 86kgs category, respectively, while Ravi Kumar 4th in the 57kg category and Vinesh are the top seed 53kgs category.

However, India has much hope from Bajrang and Vinesh. Bajrang has won gold medals at the Rome Ranking Series in 2020 and 2021 and silver medals at the two successive Asian Championships in the lead up to the Olympics but will have tough competition in the games. It seems likely that Bajrang would evade competing against Muszukaev and would only be facing Rashidov in the final.

However, before that, Bajrang would want to evade his Achilles Heel Otoguro to enter the semifinals safely. So far, Bajrang has faced Otoguro thrice, where the Japanese had the upper hand on Bajrang every time. In the semis, Bajrang could face Niyazbekov. Though the Kazakh had defeated Bajrang in the Worlds semifinal, the Indian had the last laugh when they met for the last time at the Ali Aliyev tournament in June.

Vinesh hopes to make a strong comeback statement after her career-threatening injury at the Rio Olympics. Since then, she had reached the top seed in her category, and it has been a journey laden with gold medals in the Asian Games, championships and even a bronze at World Championship.

Vinesh furthers as a medal prospect owing to North Korea pulling out of the Olympics and averting a chance to meet reigning world champion Pak Yong-mi.

However, she will still have to face seeded Mayu Mukaida of Japan, who is two-time world champion (2016, 2018), followed by Pan American champion Luisa Valverde as the third seed and China's Pang Qianyu, who is a two-time world championships bronze medallist (2018, 2019) in the fourth seed. Besides, she would also be trying to avert Sweden's, Sofia Mattsson.

4. Boxing:

The website expects Lovlina, Mary Kom and Manish Kaushik to bag a bronze medal each while predicts Amit Panghal to get a silver for his efforts.

Lovlina though the youngest, had good technique, and if all goes well, can be expected to come back home with a medal; it is only her relative inexperience that might go against her. Mary Kom, on the other hand, had plenty of experience and has been one of the most dependable athletes in India. Hopefully, she will not only manage to bag a medal but also better her bronze medal.

The website makes no mention of Simranjit Kaur, but given the grit that she has shown over the last couple of years, dealing with problems inside and outside the ring and the podium finish at the World Championships make her a contender as well.

Amit Panghal, the World No.1 seed in the flyweight category and has been consistently winning medals at the Asian Games, Asian Championships, as well as a silver at the World Championships and there, is a possibility that he might be able to better the prediction of a silver medal and turn it into a gold medal.

Manish Kaushik has been a bit of an underdog in international events and has come away with medals at the Commonwealth Games and World Championships despite not being highly rated to win. He is expected to progress relatively easily given his persistence and might do better than a bronze medal.

Though this is all the website grants India, there might be more medals coming to India. Much expectation has been riding the shoulder on the shoulders of Neeraj Chopra, the Indian javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra. The 23-old from Haryana had qualified for the Olympics back in January 2020 with a throw of 87.86m.

He has since surpassed the effort with a record throw of 88.07 at the IGP. He might be able to get India another medal. Other than Chopra, the discus thrower Kamalpreet Kaur, long jumper Sreeshankar, the badminton contingent, especially Sindhu, the table tennis contingent, especially Manika Batra all are prospective medal winners for the nation.

Also Read: Neeraj, Kamalpreet & Sreeshankar - India's medal prospects at Tokyo Olympics in athletics

The prediction does not account for them, but that is the funny thing about sports; it all depends on the sportsman and the particular day. Maybe, India will win twice as many medals as predicted by the website.