Abhinav Bindra applauds ‘spirited performance’ by Indian contingent

Paris, Aug 11 : Abhinav Bindra, who was awarded the prestigious Olympic Order by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at the 142nd IOC Session on Saturday, has applauded the Indian contingent for its "spirited performance" at the Paris Olympics.

Following the highly decorated event, India’s first individual Olympic gold medallist spoke to IANS and shared his thoughts on what has been a ‘spirited’ performance by the contingent in Paris.

“I think it’s been a spirited performance. All our athletes have performed at a high level. We may have six medals to show on our tally but if you really go in-depth into performances, we have never had a (Olympic) Games where our athletes have been so competitive across disciplines, many of them have been close to medaling,” Bindra told IANS.

India’s Paris Olympics campaign officially reached its conclusion on Saturday, but the country’s medal hopes still live on as the Court of Arbitration for Sports is yet to announce their verdict on Vinesh Phogat’s appeal on her disqualification.

The Indian medal tally ended at six, five bronze and one silver, with half of those coming from the sport that saw Abhinav Bindra win over 150 individual medals.

Manu Bhaker, Sarabjot Singh and Swapnil Kusale were the stars of the shooting team as they won three bronze medals in their respective categories. The veteran went on to admire their ‘fantastic’ performance.

“It was fantastic, we have gone back with three medals after two blanks in Rio and Tokyo and even the athletes who did not win came close, many of them made the finals. It was very encouraging,” Bindra concluded.

Apart from the spectacular performance by the Indian shooters, India won a silver medal in Javelin through Neeraj Chopra and two bronze medals from the Indian men’s hockey team and wrestler Aman Sehrawat in the men’s freestyle wrestling 57 kg category.