Paris: Through the lens of cold numbers and bare facts, India’s Paris Olympics campaign was a dip from the Tokyo Games crest. From seven medals and one gold, India went to six medals with none right at the top. From finishing 48th in the medals tally, India went down to 71st.

Neeraj Chopra, who became India’s most decorated individual Olympian at these Games, wishes to put some perspective into that outlook.

“We tend to always compare the number of medals with the previous Olympics,” Chopra said. “But this time, we have to look at the fourth-place finishes also, as well as the quality of performances.”

India had as many fourth-place finishes as the number of medals won, and a confirmed medallist disqualified and demoted to last — as things stand — for not meeting the weight on the day of her bout, a prerequisite in wrestling.

It’s those fourth-place finishes that could be particularly looked at, which had the potential to swing these Games to a dash of cheer from its current underwhelming feeling for India. But it didn’t. And that’s where the cold fact, again, of India not achieving their target from this Olympics stands, as an Indian Olympic Association official put it.

That the seven-medal high at the Tokyo Olympics came without shooting was down to the spread of sports that delivered in the pandemic Games. A couple from that did not in Paris, affecting the dent and increasing the scrutiny on them.

Boxing and badminton had come up with a medal each in Tokyo. They carried similar expectations heading into Paris, but fired blanks. Boxing, especially. Badminton had a PV Sindhu stamp writ large over the last two Olympics and in this one, the Lakshya Sen near-miss left a sour taste.

Looking at it from where he started in a tough group, the young shuttler making it that far was a creditable job. But the way it finished, with him crumbling under pressure the moment it was time to keep his composure, left many unimpressed. Including his mentor Prakash Padukone.

“We can provide everything we can. But ultimately players also have to take responsibility and go and deliver when it matters the most,” the badminton legend said. “We need to introspect, the players also need to introspect. You cannot keep asking for more and more and more.”

As per figures by the Sports Authority of India, close to around ₹470 crore was spent on India’s preparation for Paris Olympics. There are two ways perhaps of looking at this flush of money. One, that only consistently and adding to it can keep India on the path of chasing continued progress. Two, athletes have been aided enough, and, as Padukone alluded to, it cannot be infinite without definite results to show in return.

Athletics got ₹96.08 crore from the fund pool. Chopra was the lone medallist, steeplechaser Avinash Sable the only other finalist and the men’s 4x400m relay team clocked its season’s best time in its heats. Most others in the largest field among the Indian contingent punched well below their weight.

In athletics, though, the gap between India and the rest of the world is already wide, and it needs exceptional individuals like Chopra to leap across and make a mark at that level. At these Games and in events like track and field and swimming, strong Olympic nations have only gotten stronger, reckoned Gagan Narang, the Chef-de-Mission of the contingent and a former Olympian shooter. The gap, therefore, is only widening between India and the rest of the world in these key Olympic sports.

“In events like the World Championships and Olympics, we can’t really put a number on the medals that can or should be won,” Chopra said. “We have seen some big names, big champions not even make the finals here. Such things happen at an event like this where everyone is top class.”

That is where having effective structures, programmes and plans becomes essential. Shooting was an example, having taken the learnings from Tokyo and turning it into a three-medal performance three years on. It had three fourth-place finishes as well — Manu Bhaker, Arjuna Babuta and the mixed skeet team — for further promise.

That is also what hockey, which medalled in two consecutive Olympics for India after more than five decades, seeks to do to moving forward in the next four-year cycle while targetting a better finish to the bronze in Paris.

“We’ll have to link it with the U-21 programme, and the academy programmes around the country,” India head coach Craig Fulton, who took charge of the men’s team last year, said. “There’s a plan. It just takes time. As long as we sit around the table and put the right priorities in place, then anything is possible.”

That is in four years’ time in Los Angeles. For now, in Paris, India fell a touch short of what was thought was probable. Yet it wasn’t all pale by any yardstick. Especially taking into account, as Chopra put it, those who almost made it as well. It will indeed pinch. Perhaps, though, showing the potential to build.

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