India at the 2008 Summer Olympics
| India at the 2008 Summer Olympics |
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| IOC code | IND | ||||||||
| NOC | Indian Olympic Association | ||||||||
| Website | www |
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| in Beijing | |||||||||
| Competitors | 67 in 12 sports | ||||||||
| Flag bearer |
Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore (opening) Vijender Singh (closing) |
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Medals Ranked 50th |
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| Summer Olympics appearances (overview) | |||||||||
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.
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.
On 11 August 2008, Abhinav Bindra won the gold medal in the men's 10 m air rifle 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.
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