NEW DELHI: Indian athletes have been busy giving final touches to their Olympic preparations for Paris. Several of the country’s 117 Paris-bound medal hopefuls have chosen foreign shores to fine-tune their game and leave no stone unturned in their quest for Olympic glory.
If the reigning Olympic and world champion javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra has decided to train in Turkiye’s Antalya until July 28 before flying out to Paris, the six-member archery team of Dhiraj Bommadevara, Tarundeep Rai, Pravin Jadhav, Bhajan Kaur, Deepika Kumari and Ankita Bhakat have preferred Compiegne in France as their base.
The training details of the Paris-bound Indian contingent – available with TOI — show that the country’s athletes have been crisscrossing the globe to prepare for the Games.
In athletics, steeplechasers Avinash Sable and Parul Chaudhary and middle-distance runner Ankita Dhyani will be training in St. Moritz in Switzerland till July 25 before departing for Paris. Racewalker Priyanka Goswami has travelled to Montpellier in France and will remain stationed there till July 29. Javelin thrower Kishore Jena, hurdler Jyothi Yarraji, long jumper Jeswin Aldrin and triple jumper Praveen Chithravel are among the group of 17 athletes who have been training at the Olympic Sports Centre in Poland’s Spala.
In golf, Aditi Ashok, Diksha Dagar, Gaganjeet Bhullar and Shubhankar Sharma are busy training and competing in different cities of Europe. They will reach Paris on Aug 4.
India’s only judoka representative in Paris, Tulika Mann, will be preparing for her debut Olympics in Spain till July 25.
In shooting, the entire 21-member contingent has been preparing in Volmerange-les-Mines in France at the same range where the competitions will be held. In table tennis, badminton and boxing, Paris-bound athletes, including PV Sindhu and Lakshya Sen, five of the six qualified boxers and all eight paddlers have made the Olympic centre in Germany’s Saarbrucken their training base.
In wrestling, two-time World Championships medallist Vinesh Phogat has opted to train in Hungary and France till Aug 3 before travelling to Paris. Similarly, her teammates Anshu Malik and Aman Sehrawat have decided to prepare in Japan and Russia, respectively, before arriving in Paris on Aug 3.
Tokyo Olympics silver medallist weightlifter Mirabai Chanu is already in Paris for a preparatory camp . In rowing, Balraj Panwar has also set off for Paris, while sailors Vishnu Saravanan and Nethra Kumanan have chosen Marseille as their training base.
For athletes who are training in India, a batch of Indian contingent will depart for Paris on the night of July 27. The remaining athletes will be leaving in three different batches on July 22, July 25 and Aug 1.
The government had on Wednesday cleared the country’s final contingent comprising 117 athletes and 140 support staff personnel and officials. The contingent includes 70 male and 47 women athletes across 16 sports disciplines.
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