Tokyo Olympics: Indian Athletes Gear Up To Demonstrate Skills In Mega Sporting Event

Tokyo: In a bid to conquer the Olympic Games being organised in the midst of the pandemic, the Indian contingent began its preparations on Monday. The first batch of Indian players reached the sports village on Sunday morning after completing the COVID-19 formalities. 

Archers Deepika Kumari and Atanu Das, table tennis players G Sathiyan and Achanta Sharath Kamal, badminton players PV Sindhu and B Sai Praneeth, and India’s lone gymnast Pranati Nayak started practicing on Monday. 

Archery duo Atanu and Deepika practiced at the Yumenoshima Park in the morning while Sathiyan and Sharath Kamal also started their preparations to create history by winning Olympic medals. Gymnast Pranati also started practicing this morning under the supervision of coach Laxman Manohar Sharma. 

Badminton players Sindhu and Praneeth practiced under the same coach, Park Tae Sung, while the doubles pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy reached the court with their coach, Mathias Bo. The players of the sailing team, including V Saravanan, began their preparations on Sunday itself. Apart from Saravanan (men’s laser category), Netra Kumanan, KC Ganapathy and Varun Thakkar all reached here last week. They will represent the country in the sailing event at the Tokyo Olympics. 

Rovers Arjun Lal Jat and Arvind Singh, who arrived in Tokyo on Saturday, also took part in their first practice session at the Sea Forest Waterway on Sunday under the supervision of chief national coach Ismail Baig. Both of them will compete in the men’s lightweight double sculls. 

India’s 15-member shooting team also went to a shooting range on Monday. According to the guidelines set by the organising committee earlier, players going from India were to remain on a mandatory three-day quarantine, but later it was removed, which brought a big relief to the players.