2024 Paris Olympics, table tennis: Key details of Indian contingent
What's the story
The 2024 Paris Olympics will be underway on July 26 in Paris, the capital of France. Over 10,000 athletes will feature at the Paris Games for 19 days. Notably, India is set to field six athletes in table tennis across categories, led by Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra. The Indian table tennis contingent still eyes its maiden Olympic medal in the sport.
Details
Table tennis at Paris Games
The table tennis competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics will be held from July 27 to August 10 at the South Paris Arena. The five categories for the sport are men's singles, women's singles, mixed doubles, men's team, and women's team. Notably, the men's and women's singles finals will be held on August 4 and 3, respectively.
Squad
India's table tennis squad for Paris Games
India's table tennis squad for Paris Games: Sharath Kamal, Harmeet Desai, Manav Thakkar, Manika Batra, Sreeja Akula, Archana Kamath. Reserve players: G Sathiyan and Ayhika Mukherjee. Notably, the reserve players can feature only in case of any injuries.
Draws
Indian table tennis contingent draw
Men's team Round of 16: India vs China. Women's team Round of 16: India vs Romania. Men's singles Preliminary round: Harmeet Desai vs Zaid Abo Yaman. Round of 64: Sharath Kamal vs Deni Kozul. Women's singles Round of 64: Manika Batra vs Anna Hursey. Round of 64: Sreeja Akula vs Christina Kallberg.
Information
A record participation for Team India
This will be the first instance of India participating in the team table tennis events at the Olympics. Notably, the men's and women's team events were introduced at the Olympic Games in 2008 (Beijing).
Medal
Manika, Sharath among India's medal hopefuls
Manika is among the top contenders to script history in table tennis in Paris. She will feature in her third successive Super Olympics (also in 2016 and 2020). In Tokyo, Batra became the first Indian paddler to reach the third round (singles) at the Olympics. Sharath, India's top-ranked men's singles player in table tennis, will appear at the Olympics for the fifth time.