India first participated at the Olympic Games in 1900, with a lone athlete (Norman Pritchard) winning two medals in athletics. The nation first sent a team to the Summer Olympic Games in 1920, and has participated in every Summer Games since then. India has also competed at several Winter Olympic Games since 1964. The 1920 team consisted of two wrestlers, two athletes and a manager. Out of the four sportsmen, only Mr. Phadeppa Dareppa Chaugule completed his event that is the Marathon. He ranked 19th with a timing of 2 Hours 50 Minutes 45.4 Seconds for a distance of 42 .750 KMs. He thus becomes India's first Olympic Marathon runner. It was indeed a great achievement for an Indian to participate and to complete the event amidst many serious adversities. Indian athletes have won a total of 21 medals, mostly in field hockey. For a period of time, India's men's field hockey team was dominant in Olympic competition, winning eleven medals in twelve Olympics between 1928 and 1980, including six successive gold medals from 1928–1956.
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India after independence from the British empire on 15th august,1947 competed for the Olympics games as an Independent nation in 1948. Before Independence also India competed for Olympics six times in 1900, 1920, 1924, 1928, 1932, 1936.
India competed at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, England. It was the first time that India competed as an independent nation at the Olympic Games.India won gold medal for Hockey game at that time.This gold medal was a very big achievement for a Newly Independent nation like India.
India competed at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, Finland.India won a Gold medal for Hockey and a Bronze medal for wrestling.
India competed at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia.India won a Gold medal in Hockey.
India competed at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy. This was the first time since 1928 that the Men's team failed to achieve a gold medal in field hockey. They lost 1-0 to Pakistan to secure the second position.
India competed at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.this time also Indian Men's Hockey team won a Gold medal.
India competed at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, Mexico.This time Indian team won a Bronze medal for Hockey game.
India competed at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany.India Won a Bronze medal for it's Hockey team.
India competed at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Canada. This is the first Olympics since 1924 in which the Indian Men's hockey team do not win an Olympic Medal, in fact Indian team did not won any medal at all.
India competed at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, USSR.This time Indian Men's Hockey team won a Gold medal.
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India competed at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, United States. India didn't win a medal but the Games are remembered for bringing Indian women athletes centre stage. P. T. Usha lost the bronze medal in 400 metre hurdles by one-hundredth of a second. Earlier in the Games, Shiny Abraham (now Shiny Wilson) reached the semifinals of 800 metres with a (then) personal best of 2:04.69 seconds and became the first Indian woman to reach the semi-finals of an Olympic event. She finished last in the semifinal.
Later, the Indian women's 4x400 metre relay team composed of P. T. Usha, Shiny Abraham, M. D. Valsamma and Vandana Rao made it to the finals. They finished last among the seven teams in the final but set an Asian record of 3:32.49 seconds.
India competed at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, Korea.India did not won any medal this time.
India competed at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.No medal was won by India.
India competed at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, United States For the first time Indian tennis team won a bronze medal.This year single medal was Won by India, no medal was won in Hockey.
India competed at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.This time India won a Bronze medal for weightlifting.
India competed at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.India won a silver medal for Shooting.
India competed at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, People's Republic of China. India was represented by the Indian Olympic Association (IOA). A contingent of 56 athletes represented India, and had a support-staff of 42 officials. The athletics contingent was the largest, with 17 athletes.
For the first time since 1928, the Indian Men's Hockey Team was unable to take part in the Summer Olympics due to its failure to qualify. A two-year ban imposed by the International Weightlifting Federation after the 2006 Commonwealth Games doping scandal originally resulted in only one Olympic weightlifter, Monika Devi from India being scheduled to compete, but she too failed a drug test, and was also withdrawn. However, on August 9 it was declared she was clean, but the event she was supposed to participate in, had already closed.
On August 11, 2008, Abhinav Bindra won the gold medal in the men's 10m air rifle shooting event. In doing so, he won the first ever individual gold medal for India, and the first medal in any event for India at the Beijing Games. The previous highest individual achievements for India were two silver medals won by Norman Pritchard, an Englishman born in India representing Great Britain, at the 1900 Paris Olympics and one silver medal won by the 2008 flagbearer Rajyavardhan Rathore at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Sushil Kumar won the second ever wrestling medal for India, the first being the bronze earned by Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. Vijender Kumar won a bronze medal in the middleweight boxing category, having lost in the semifinals. This was India's first-ever Olympic medal in boxing.
The 2008 Beijing Olympics saw the best ever performance by an Indian contingent, in terms of the number of medals. They won three medals in all (one gold and two bronze medals), surpassing the two silvers by Norman Pritchard in 1900 Paris Olympics and the gold and bronze medals won by the Indian field hockey team and Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav respectively, at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.
India Olympic Team is competing at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom, from 27 July to 12 August 2012.India sent an 83-member athlete team to London; this will be India's largest contingent ever at the games. Sushil Kumar was the flag bearer in the opening ceremony.
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