“Welcome, Beautiful India.” That’s the first thing anyone landing from back home is likely to see, courtesy a man holding a placard outside the Charles de Gaulle international airport. India’s athletes are soaking in the warm welcome for the 2024 Paris Olympics, which will be declared open on Friday, while exuding quiet optimism.
Many from the country’s contingent of 117 athletes have trickled into the Games Village, and already ticking a few to-do boxes — selfies with Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz, for instance. They are here to do more than just that, though. Hockey goalkeeper PR Sreejesh — the photo of him sitting atop the goalpost after the men’s team won bronze was a standout moment of the Tokyo Games of 2021 — is eager to sign off on his international career with even finer memories.
“When we entered the Village, everyone was like ‘let’s do something better than last time’,” Sreejesh, gearing up for his fourth Games, told HT on Wednesday. “Earlier, we were there to participate in the Olympics. Now, every player here has some sort of motto!” That motto, from the larger Indian perspective on the back of the country’s best-ever seven-medal show at Tokyo 2020, would be to match that at least, or better, surpass it.
A double-digit medal haul in Paris would be an ideal extension to their “sau paar” (100-plus) Hangzhou Asian Games exploits of last year. It will, make no mistake, take some doing. Like it has for the Paris Games to reach t.