Ukhrul: The 29-year-old Olympian, Hockey Star brings home, Manipur a wave of victory as India wins Bronze in Hockey at the Paris Olympic with its stellar performance against Spain. Nilakanta Sharma makes history as the only Manipuri Olympian contributing to India’s medal tally at Paris 2024.
Nilakanta Sharma, a midfielder, was formerly a train ticket collector. The Manipuri Olympian has represented India in both the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Olympics, earning two bronze medals. He was also part of the Indian squad that won the 2016 Men’s Hockey Junior World Cup and secured a gold medal in the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou.
The Hockey India has announced a cash prize of 15 lakhs for each players of the Hocky India Team and 7.5 lakhs for each member of the support staff in honour of their Bronze medal victory. They are to be awarded by their own states. Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi also extended his congratulations to the team by announcing a separate reward of Rs 15 lakh for each player in the squad, while, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann announced that his government would award a cash prize of Rs 1 crore to each hockey player. Meanwhile the other states have not made official announcement of the reward.
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India ends Paris Olympic 2024 with 6 medals and one pending medal appeal
India will bring home six medals from the Paris Olympics 2024 after participating in 16 sports with a record contingent of 117 athletes. The medal hunt began with shooting, where Manu Bhaker secured the nation’s first medal, a bronze in the 10m air pistol event. She became the first Indian to win two medals in a single edition, later pairing with Sarabjot Singh to earn another bronze in the 10m air pistol mixed team event. Swapnil Kusale added another bronze in the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions event, making it three shooting medals in total.
The Indian hockey team also defended their Tokyo 2020 bronze medal in Paris as they beat Spain 2-1 to bag the medal. India’s golden boy Neeraj Chopra the 24-year-old failed to defend his gold courtesy as Pakistan ‘s Arshad Nadeem break record with his 92.97m throw. Neeraj won the silver medal with a season best throw of 89.43m. The last 6th medal came from 21-year-old Aman Sehrawat becoming the youngest Indian Olympic medalist. The wrestler won the medal in the men’s 57kg freestyle bronze medal match.
China edged past the United States in the Paris Olympics medal table on Saturday after bagging its 39th gold medal at the ongoing campaign.
India is currently at the 71th position in the medal tally of the Paris Olympics 2024 as the contingent failed to win any gold medal. India is down with 1 medal compared to Tokyo Olympic 2020 which tallied the highest medals, 7 in total in India Olympic History.
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