Olympics never fails to pump up the excitement. As the Olympics 2021 is nearing its opening ceremony on 23rd July, thrill has started to knock our doors. But this time excitement and corona virus concern go hand in hand. News keeps floating around about the preparations, safety measures, instructions, selections and so on. After getting cancelled last year, Tokyo Olympics is all set to happen and that’s why it is still called as Olympics 2020. The host and participants are leaving no stones unturned in turning it into a success.
Tokyo has completed all the preparations for the 2021 Olympics.
Olympics is way more than a mere gaming event. It has encompassed emotions and efforts since ages. So, let us go through the article to have more of historical aspects of Olympics along with the deeds related to modern-day events.
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Table of Contents
Tokyo Olympics 2020 Schedule:
| Host City | Tokyo, Japan |
| Opening Ceremony | 23 July 2021 |
| Closing Ceremony | 8 August 2021 |
| Stadium Name | Japan National Stadium |
| How many Athletes participate | 11238+ |
| Number of Events | 339 in 33 sports |
| Theme | Hope lights our way |
History of Olympics:
Walking into the lane of History, we get to know about the ancient Games of Olympic. These were staged in Olympia, Greece from 776 BC to 393 AD.
The ancient Olympics included a one-day event initially. Later the event was scheduled for three days. Games like running, long jump, boxing, javelin, shot put, pankration and so on were conducted in older times too.
The Olympic Games were related to cultural aspects of Greece. These were also used to decide calendar.
Read here: The biography of Bhavani Devi – First Indian fencer to qualify for Olympics
Some Facts about ‘Ancient Olympics’:
| First Olympics | 776 BC |
| First Olympic held in | Greece |
| Why these got conducted? | In the honour of Zeus. Greeks connected it with mythology too. |
| Prizes for Victors | Olive leaves’ Crowns |
It took 1503 years for the events of Olympics to return. In the year of 1896, Athens, Greece had the honour to welcome this power-packed event. The credit lies with a French man named Baron Pierre de Coubertin who came up with the idea in 1894, for the events related to modern games.
Some ‘Firsts’ related to ‘Modern Olympics’:
| The first Olympic Torch | 1928 (inaugurated), Amsterdam |
| The first Olympic Oath | 1920 |
| The first symbol of Modern Olympics | 1913, by Pierre de Coubertin |
| First Olympic Champion | 6th April, 1896, James Connolly |
| First female winner | Helene de Pourtales (1900) |
How Tokyo Olympics is different from previous ones in this Pandemic situation?
As we Know, it has been scheduled from 23rd July to 8th of August this year. Organisers are bound to implement changes amid Covid chaos. Let us go through the details that make Tokyo Olympics different:
- It has been decided to ban the spectators. Earlier 10,000 Japanese spectators were permitted. In March an announcement was made to exclude international spectators.
- International athletes along with their teams are going get tested before departure and after the arrival in order to ensure the safety standard.
- The fear of pandemic has made several Japanese towns to back out from the hosting.
- This time an array of new sports including surfing, sport climbing, karate, baseball, skateboarding is going to get inducted.
- Tokyo 2020 medal project has caught the attention. It aims to create medals from strictly recycled stuffs.
- The cost which has been put here is more than $26 billion.
Preparation by India for Olympic 2021:
Where do we stand right now? What about India’s performance? How are we going to cope up with the adverse impacts of pandemic? A bulk of questions arises while thinking of India’s stance and performance in the upcoming event. Let us focus on a few aspects to get some insights:
- The feel ‘Olympics is on’ is live. India has ensured a conducive training and preparation environment for all the athletes.
- Athletes had selected their own places of training like shooters went to Croatia, hockey team stayed at Bengaluru.
- Some athletes demanded for a competition before the Olympics. Complains about the lack of competition persisted, but turmoil due to pandemic could not let that happen.
- The entire Indian team will get vaccinated before leaving for the Olympics. In India every athlete is being vaccinated with one of the COVID vaccines. It is approved by World Anti-Doping Agency.
- Government is focusing on giving a moral boost to all the athletes.
- Regular video conferencing will be organised with families of athletes.
New Sports added in Olympic 2021:
Tokyo Olympics is all set to host the event with an array of new sports, such as:
- Karate
- Skateboarding
- Surfing
- Baseball
- Sport climbing
List of Indian Athletes who Qualified for Olympics 2021:
So far India has won 28 medals in 31 sessions of summer games. London Olympics of 2012 had been India’s best gaming event till date with six glorious medals.
With the sense of optimism let us know about the athletes who are making us to weave high hopes by qualifying for Tokyo Olympics.
ARCHERY
| Women’s Individual | Deepika Kumari |
| Men’s Individual | Atanu Das, Tarundeep Rai, Praveen Yadav |
| Mixed Team | Deepika Kumari, Atanu Das |
ATHLETICS
Track and Road Events
| Men’s 400m Huddle | MP Jabir |
| Men’s 400m Relay | Noah Nirmal Tom, Muhammad Anas Yahiya, Amoj Jacob, Arokia Rajiv, Nagananthan Pandi |
| Men’s 20KM Race Walk | Sandeep Kumar, Rahul Rohila, Irfan Kolothum Thodi |
| Men’s 50KM Race Walk | Gurpreet Singh |
| Men’s 3000 M steeplechase | Avinash Sable |
| Women’s 100M | Dutee Chand |
| Women’s 200M | Dutee Chand |
| Women’s 20 KM Race Walk | Priyanka Goswami, Bhavna Jat |
| Mixed 4* 400m Relay | Sarthak Bhambri, Alex Anthony, V Revathi, Subha Venkatesan, Dhanalakshmi Sekhar |
FIELD EVENTS
| Men’s Javelin Throw | Neeraj Chopra, Tejpal Singh |
| Men’s long jump | Murali Sreeshankar |
| Men’s shot put | Tajindar Pal Singh Toor |
| Women’s discus throw | Kamalpreet Kaur, Seema Punia |
| Women’s Javelin throw | Annu Rani |
BADMINTON
| Men’s Single | Sai B Praneeth |
| Men’s Doubles | Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, Chirag Shetty |
| Women’s Singles | P V Sindhu |
WEIGHTLIFTING
| 63 kg LIGHTWEIGHT (MEN) | Manish Kaushik |
| 69kg WELTERWEIGHT(MEN) | Vikas Krishnan |
| 75kg MIDDLEWEIGHT(MEN) | Ashish Kumar |
| 91kg SUPERHEAVY WEIGHT(MEN) | Satish Kumar |
| 51 kg FLYWEIGHT (WOMEN) | Mary Kom |
| 60 kg LIGHTWEIGHT (WOMEN) | Simranjit Kaur |
| 69kg WELTERWEIGHT(WOMEN) | Lovina Bargohain |
| 75kg MIDDLEWEIGHT(WOMEN) | Pooja Rani |
WRESTLING
| MEN | WOMEN |
| Ravi Dahiya (57kg), Bajrang Punia (65kg), Deepak Punia(86kg) | Seema Bista (50kg), Vinesh Phogat(53kg), Anshu Mallik (57kg), Sonam Malik (62kg) |
OTHER SPORTS
| Equestrian | Fouaad Mirza |
| Fencing | C A Bhavani Devi |
| Golf | Anirban Lahiri, Udayan Mane, Aditi Ashok |
| Gymnastics | Pranati Nayak |
| Judo | Sushila Devi |
| Tennis (Women’s Doubles) | Sania Mirza, Ankita Raina |
| Rowing | Arjun Lal, Arvind Singh |
| Sailing | Vishnu Sravnan, K C Ganpathy, Varun Thakkar, Nethra Kumanan |
| Shooting | Divyansh Singh Panwar, Deepak Kumar, Apurvi Chandela, Elavenil Valarivan, Saurabh Chaudhary, Abhishek Verma, Manu Bhaker, Yashaswini Singh Deswal, Sanjeev Rajput, Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, Anjum Moudgil, Tejaswini Sawant, Manu Bhaker, Rani Sarnobat, Angad Bajwa, Mairaj Ahmad Khan, Divyansh Singh Panwar, Elavenil Valarivan |
| Swimming | Srihari Prakash, Sajan Natraj, Maana Patel |
| Table Tennis | Sathiyan Ganasekaran, Achanta Sarat Kamal, Manika Batra, Sutirtha Mukherjee |
FAQs:
The IOC decides events considering popularity, gender equity and so on while deciding the list.
‘Hope lights our way’ is the theme for the upcoming event.
Miraitowa which is a Japanese term, consists the meaning of ‘future’ and ‘eternity’ has been chosen as the mascot.
Baseball and softball.
No such events.
There is no particular meaning of the rings. It is believed that these do represent the population of five continents.
Equestrian Fouaad Mirza.
Sajan Prakash became the first Indian swimmer to do so.
The Sony Sports Network will telecast it in different languages.
Preparation of Tokyo Olympics has already made it the most expensive one.
Naomi Osaka, Biles, Nyjah Huston, Noah Lyles and so on are having eyes on them.
No Olympic Torch relay is going to happen. It is going to get replaced by private flame lighting ceremonies.
Approximately 48,000 meals are going to get served in athletes’ village.
Approximately, an amount of Rs1169.65crores has been spent by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports.
206
India first participated in the year of 1900.
Conclusion:
Olympics never failed to amplify the excitement and efforts, be it in older times or in modern one. Amid the pandemic chaos the host and participant countries are paying utmost attention on the safety measures. Spectators, jam-packed crowd, march, shouting and so on are going to get missed but the arrangement amongst this adversity is not a cake walk. India is also all set to eye on medals by delivering historic performances. With the sense of optimism and positivity, we can wish for the huge success of this upcoming event.
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