India at the 2008 Summer Olympics explained

Noc:	IND
Nocname:	Indian Olympic Association
Games:	Summer Olympics
Year:	2008
Location:	Beijing
Competitors:	67
Sports:	12
Flagbearer:	Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore (opening) Vijender Singh^[1] (closing)
Rank:	50
Gold:	1
Silver:	0
Bronze:	2
Appearances:	auto
App Begin Year:	1900

India competed at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, People's Republic of China. India was represented by the Indian Olympic Association (IOA). A contingent of 57 athletes in 12 sports represented India, and had a support-staff of 42 officials.^[2]

For the first time since 1928, the men's national field hockey team was unable to take part in the Summer Olympics due to its failure to qualify. A two-year ban imposed by the International Weightlifting Federation after the 2006 Commonwealth Games doping scandal originally resulted in only one Olympic weightlifter, Monika Devi from India being scheduled to compete, but she withdrew from the competition after failing the drug test. On 9 August 2008, IWF declared that she was clean, but the event she was supposed to participate in, had already closed.^[3]

On 11 August 2008, Abhinav Bindra won the gold medal in the men's 10 m air rifle. It was a huge achievement for India at the Olympic games shooting event. In doing so, he won the first ever individual gold medal for India, and the first medal in any event for India at the Beijing Games. The previous highest individual achievements for India were two silver medals won by Norman Pritchard, an Englishman born in India, at the 1900 Paris Olympics and one silver medal won by the 2008 flagbearer Rajyavardhan Rathore at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Sushil Kumar won the second ever wrestling medal for India, the first being the bronze earned by Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. Vijender Singh won a bronze medal in the middleweight boxing category, having lost in the semifinals. This was India's first-ever Olympic medal in boxing.

The 2008 Beijing Olympics saw the best ever performance by an Indian contingent, in terms of the number of medals (this record was later surpassed in 2012). They won three medals in all (one gold and two bronze medals), surpassing the two silvers by Norman Pritchard in 1900 Paris Olympics^[4] and the gold and bronze medals won by the Indian field hockey team and Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav respectively, at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.

Medalists

See main article: 2008 Summer Olympics medal count.

Competitors

width=160	Sport	width=40	Men	width=40	Women	width=40	Total	width=40	Event
	1	3	4	3
	3	13	16	9
	1	1	2	2
	5	0	5	5
	0	2	2	2
	3	0	3	2
	1	0	1	1
	7	2	9	9
Swimming	4	0	4	7
Table tennis	1	1	2	2
Tennis	2	2	4	3
Wrestling	3	0	3	3
Total	31	25	56	48

Archery

See main article: Archery at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Athlete	Event	Ranking round		Round of 64	Round of 32	Round of 16	Quarterfinals	Semifinals	Final /
		Score	Seed	Opposition Score	Opposition Score	Opposition Score	Opposition Score	Opposition Score	Opposition Score	Rank
Mangal Champia	Men's individual	678	2	(63) W 112–98	(31) L 108–109	Did not advance
Dola Banerjee	align=left rowspan=3	Women's individual	633	31	(34) L 108 (8)–108 (10)	Did not advance
Bombayala Devi	637	22	(43) L 101–103	Did not advance
Pranitha Vardhineni	627	37	(28) W 106–100	(5) L 99–106	Did not advance
Dola Banerjee Bombayala Devi Pranitha Vardhineni	Women's team	1897	6		(3) L 206–211	Did not advance

Athletics

See main article: Athletics at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Men

Track & road events

Field events

Athlete	Event	Qualification		Final
		Distance	Position	Distance	Position
Vikas Gowda	Discus throw	60.69	22	Did not advance
Renjith Maheswary	Triple jump	15.77	35	Did not advance

Women

Track & road events

Athlete	Event	Heat		Semifinal		Final
		Result	Rank	Result	Rank	Result	Rank
Mandeep Kaur	400 m	52.88	6	Did not advance
Preeja Sreedharan	10000 m	32:34.64	25^[5]
Sathi Geetha Mandeep Kaur Manjeet Kaur Sini Jose Chitra Soman	4 × 400 m relay	3:28.83	7	Did not advance

Field events

Athlete	Event	Qualification		Final
		Distance	Position	Distance	Position
Anju Bobby George	Long jump		—	Did not advance
Harwant Kaur	align=left rowspan=2	Discus throw	56.42	30	Did not advance
Krishna Poonia	58.23	24	Did not advance

Combined events – Heptathlon

Athlete	Event				200 m			800 m	Final	Rank
Pramila Aiyappa	Result	13.97	1.74	11.66	24.92	6.11	41.27	2:23.46	5771	27*
Points	983	903	639	894	883	692	777
Shobha Javur	Result	13.62	1.65	13.07	24.62	5.86	43.50	2:27.50	5749	29*
Points	1033	795	732	922	807	735	725
Susmita Singha Roy	Result	14.11	1.71	11.27	24.34	5.98	39.79	2:21.14	5705	32*
Points	963	867	613	948	843	663	808

* The athlete who finished in second place, Lyudmila Blonska of the Ukraine, tested positive for a banned substance.^[6] Both the A and the B tests were positive, therefore Blonska was stripped of her silver medal, and all Indian heptathletes moved up a position.

Badminton

See main article: Badminton at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Athlete	Event	Round of 64	Round of 32	Round of 16	Quarterfinal	Semifinal	Final /
		Opposition Score	Opposition Score	Opposition Score	Opposition Score	Opposition Score	Opposition Score	Rank
Anup Sridhar	Men's singles	W 21–16, 21–14	L 13–21, 17–21	Did not advance
Saina Nehwal	Women's singles	W 21–9, 21–8	W 21–18, 21–10	W 21–19, 11–21, 21–11	L 28–26, 14–21, 15–21	Did not advance

Boxing

See main article: Boxing at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Athlete	Event	Round of 32	Round of 16	Quarterfinals	Semifinals	Final
		Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Rank
Jitender Kumar	Flyweight	W	W 13–6	L 11–15	Did not advance
Akhil Kumar	Bantamweight	W 12–5	W 9^+–9	L 3–10	Did not advance
Anthresh Lalit Lakra	Featherweight	L 5–9	Did not advance
Vijender Singh	Middleweight	W 13–2	W 13–3	W 9–4	L 5–8	Did not advance
Dinesh Kumar	Light heavyweight	L 3–23	Did not advance

Judo

See main article: Judo at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Athlete	Event	Round of 32	Round of 16	Quarterfinals	Semifinals	Repechage 1	Repechage 2	Repechage 3	Final /
		Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Rank
Khumujam Tombi Devi	Women's −48 kg	L 0000–1011	Did not advance
Divya Tewar	Women's −78 kg	L 0000–1000	Did not advance			L 0000–1010	Did not advance

Rowing

See main article: Rowing at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Men

Athlete	Event	Heats		Repechage		Quarterfinals		Semifinals		Final
		Time	Rank	Time	Rank	Time	Rank	Time	Rank	Time	Rank
Bajranglal Takhar	Single sculls	7:39.91	3 QF	7:19.01	5 SC/D	7:23.00	4 FD	7:09.73	21
Devender Kumar Khandwal Manjeet Singh	Lightweight double sculls	6:37.13	5 R	7:02.06	5 SC/D	6:40.34	3 FC	6:44.48	18

Qualification Legend: FA=Final A (medal); FB=Final B (non-medal); FC=Final C (non-medal); FD=Final D (non-medal); FE=Final E (non-medal); FF=Final F (non-medal); SA/B=Semifinals A/B; SC/D=Semifinals C/D; SE/F=Semifinals E/F; QF=Quarterfinals; R=Repechage

Sailing

See main article: Sailing at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Open

M = Medal race; EL = Eliminated – did not advance into the medal race; CAN = Race cancelled;

Shooting

See main article: Shooting at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Men

Athlete	Event	Qualification		Final
		Points	Rank	Points	Rank
Abhinav Bindra	10 m air rifle	596	4	700.5
align=left rowspan=2	Samaresh Jung	10 m air pistol	570	42	Did not advance
50 m pistol	540	42	Did not advance
align=left rowspan=3	Gagan Narang	10 m air rifle	595	9	Did not advance
50 m rifle prone	589	35	Did not advance
50 m rifle 3 positions	1167	13	Did not advance
align=left rowspan=2	Sanjeev Rajput	50 m rifle prone	591	26	Did not advance
50 m rifle 3 positions	1162	26	Did not advance
Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore	Double trap	131	15	Did not advance
Manavjit Singh Sandhu	align=left rowspan=2	Trap	116	12	Did not advance
Mansher Singh	117	8	Did not advance

Women

Athlete	Event	Qualification		Final
		Points	Rank	Points	Rank
align=left rowspan=2	Anjali Bhagwat	10 m air rifle	393	29	Did not advance
50 m rifle 3 positions	571	32	Did not advance
align=left rowspan=2	Avneet Kaur Sidhu	10 m air rifle	389	39	Did not advance
50 m rifle 3 positions	552	42	Did not advance

Swimming

See main article: Swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Men

Athlete	Event	Heat		Semifinal		Final
		Time	Rank	Time	Rank	Time	Rank
align=left rowspan=3	Virdhawal Khade	50 m freestyle	22.73	40	Did not advance
100 m freestyle	50.07	42	Did not advance
200 m freestyle	1:51.86	48	Did not advance
Rehan Poncha	200 m butterfly	2:01.89	40	Did not advance
Ankur Poseria	100 m butterfly	54.74	57	Did not advance
align=left rowspan=2	Sandeep Sejwal	100 m breaststroke	1:02.19	38	Did not advance
200 m breaststroke	2:15.24	36	Did not advance

Table tennis

See main article: Table tennis at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Athlete	Event	Preliminary round	Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Quarterfinals	Semifinals	Final /
		Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Rank
Sharath Kamal	Men's singles		W 4–2	L 1–4	Did not advance
Neha Aggarwal	Women's singles	L 1–4	Did not advance

Tennis

See main article: Tennis at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Athlete	Event	Round of 64	Round of 32	Round of 16	Quarterfinals	Semifinals	Final /
		Opposition Score	Opposition Score	Opposition Score	Opposition Score	Opposition Score	Opposition Score	Rank
Mahesh Bhupathi Leander Paes	Men's doubles		W 6–3, 6–3	W 6–4, 6–2	L 2–6, 4–6	Did not advance
Sania Mirza	Women's singles	L 1–6, 1–2^r	Did not advance
Sania Mirza Sunitha Rao	Women's doubles		W	L 4–6, 4–6	Did not advance

Wrestling

See main article: Wrestling at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Men's freestyle

Athlete	Event	Qualification	Round of 16	Quarterfinal	Semifinal	Repechage 1	Repechage 2	Final /
		Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Opposition Result	Rank
Yogeshwar Dutt	−60 kg		W 3–1	L 1–3	Did not advance				9
Sushil Kumar	−66 kg		L 1–3	Did not advance		W 3–1	W 3–1	W 3–1
Rajiv Tomar	−120 kg	L 0–3	Did not advance						17

See also

• India at the Olympics
• Sports of India

External links

• Indian contingent to the 2008 Beijing Olympics (PDF)

Notes and References

1. https://archive.today/20130103013008/http://www.hindustantimes.com/storypage/storypage.aspx?sectionName=HomePage&id=6e77cb11-c063-4552-acc7-413c1a54227f&MatchID1=4740&TeamID1=8&TeamID2=6&MatchType1=2&SeriesID1=1195&PrimaryID=4740&Headline=Vijender+India's+flag+bearer+for+closing+ceremony&strParent=strParentID Indias Flag Bearer for the closing ceremony
2. Web site: India names 57-member squad for Beijing Olympics . https://web.archive.org/web/20120826012630/http://ibnlive.in.com/news/india-names-57member-squad-for-beijing-olympics/69524-5.html . dead . August 26, 2012 . . . Aug 12, 2008 . May 19, 2011.
3. News: Indian lifter fails drug test . CBC Sports . August 5, 2008 . https://archive.today/20120728233417/http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/weightlifting/story/2008/08/05/doping-devi.html . dead . July 28, 2012 . August 5, 2008 .
4. Web site: Olympic Athletes - Biographies, Medals & More.
5. http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/INF/AT/C73G/ATW100101.shtml#ATW100101 Women's 10,000 m final results
6. Web site: Blonska thrown out of long jump . 2008-08-21 . . 2008-08-21 .