India at the 2016 Summer Olympics
| India at the 2016 Summer Olympics |
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| IOC code | IND | ||||||||
| NOC | Indian Olympic Association | ||||||||
| Website | www |
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| in Rio de Janeiro | |||||||||
| Competitors | 117 in 15 sports | ||||||||
| Flag bearer |
Abhinav Bindra (opening) Sakshi Malik (closing) |
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Medals Ranked 67th |
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| Summer Olympics appearances (overview) | |||||||||
India competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 5 to 21 August 2016. Indian athletes have appeared in every edition of the Summer Olympics since 1920, although they had their official debut at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris.
The Indian Olympic Association fielded a team of 117 athletes, 63 men and 54 women, across 15 sports at the Games. It was the nation's largest ever delegation sent to the Olympics, due to the historic comeback of the women's field hockey squad after 36 years and the proliferation of track and field athletes making the cut. Among the sporting events represented by its athletes, India marked its Olympic debut in golf (new to the 2016 Games) and women's artistic gymnastics.
The Indian roster featured three Olympic medalists from London, including badminton star Saina Nehwal, freestyle wrestler and four-time Olympian Yogeshwar Dutt, and rifle shooter Gagan Narang. Tennis ace and 1996 bronze medalist Leander Paes topped the list of most experienced Indian athletes to set a historic record for his seventh Olympic appearance, while air rifle marksman Abhinav Bindra, who became the nation's first and only individual gold medalist in history (2008), led the Indian delegation as the flag bearer in the opening ceremony at his fifth consecutive Games. Other notable Indian athletes also included world's top-ranked tennis player Sania Mirza in the women's doubles, artistic gymnast and Commonwealth Games bronze medalist Dipa Karmakar, and multiple-time world medalist Jitu Rai in men's pistol shooting.
India left Rio de Janeiro with only two medals, saving its pride from the humiliation of returning empty-handed for the first time since Barcelona 1992. These medals were awarded only to the female athletes for the first time in history, a silver to badminton player P. V. Sindhu in the women's singles, and a bronze to freestyle wrestler Sakshi Malik in the women's 58 kg. Several Indian athletes came closest to the medal haul, including tennis tandem Mirza and Rohan Bopanna in the mixed doubles; Bindra, who narrowly missed out the podium by a half-point in the men's 10 m air rifle before retiring from the sport; and Karmakar, who surprised the global audience with her high-risk Produnova routine in the women's vault. For the first time, the Indian shooters failed to earn a single medal since 2000, as well as the boxers since 2004.
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