Ready, Reset, Go: Looking Ahead To Sport In 2024

Athletes are experts at hitting the reset button. Between points, during matches, through the ebbs and flow of the season, after injuries.

- Deepti Patwardhan

They assess, gather themselves and step up to the plate. As 2024 begins, they would have jotted down their goals, drawn up battle plans and calculated when to peak. For 2024 is another packed year in sport, with the Paris Olympics as the piece de resistance.

THE PARIS TEST

After a deferred and spectator-less Olympics in Tokyo, the quadrennial event will be held at full blast this time around. It will give Indian sport a chance to measure just how they match up to the world after the remarkable strides of the past few years.

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics turned out to be the most successful Summer Games for India, as the country won a record seven medals, including a gleaming gold in track and field by Neeraj Chopra. Since then, they have won world championships in women's boxing and archery, peaked at No.1 in badminton, and claimed a record 107 medals at the Asian Games. The Paris Olympics, which will take place from 26 July to 11 August, will be the ultimate test.

Since India's multiple-medal haul at the 2008 Beijing Games-when Abhinav Bindra won the country's first individual gold in Olympics and wrestler Sushil Kumar and boxer Vijender Singh won bronze each subsequent Olympics have begun with promise. Don't be surprised if experts chime in with a double-digit prediction for Paris too. This should be tempered by the fact that historically, reality has rarely matched up to the hype