5 lesser known facts about the Indian Olympics Team, 2016

Rio Olympics is coming very soon and India is sending its contingent for the Olympics! Some of India’s greatest sportsperson would be on the flight to Rio in the hope for getting India a yellow medal, but we bet there are some facts about the Indian contingent that you may not be aware of!

1. Seventh consecutive Olympics for Leander Paes: Leander Paes will be representing India for the seventh time at Olympics. Leander would be pairing up with Rohan Bopanna for men’s doubles in tennis. Leander has been a part of the Indian contingent since 1992 Barcelona Olympics and has represented India in all the Olympics thereafter. This feat would also make Leander the most featured Indian in Olympics. Hope he repeats his medal winning feat of 1996 this Olympics.
2. First woman gymnast from India in Olympics: Dipa Karmakar would be the first Indian woman gymnast ever to compete for the coveted Olympic medal at Rio Olympics. She would also be the first gymnast after 52 long years to represent the country in gymnastics. What makes her achievement even more special is the fact that she has garnered the highest score on a Produnova (a vault that consists of a front handspring and two front somersaults) in the world to qualify for Rio Olympics 2016.
3. Biggest wrestling contingent ever from India: There would be eight wrestlers from India on the flight to Rio, the highest ever to go for any Olympics from India. Wrestling has been a sport where India has excelled in Olympics. While everyone remembers the consecutive medals won by Sushil Kumar in 2008 and 2012 and the spectacular performance of Yogeshwar Dutt in the last Olympics where he added a bronze to India’s medal tally, the best part is that the first individual medal that India earned at Olympics post-independence was also in wrestling thanks to Khashaba Jadhav’s bronze medal in 1952. The pressure to add to the tally would definitely be high on the eight-member wrestling contingent from India.
4. The Highest number of individual medalists in the contingent: The Indian contingent for Rio Olympics has as many as five sports players who have previously won an individual medal for the country. Never in the history have more individual Olympic medalists been part of the Indian contingent. Saina Nehwal, Gagan Narang, Yogeshwar Dutt, Leander Paes and Abhinav Bindra have all made the country proud at Olympics previously. Let us all hope that they repeat the same at Rio this Olympics.
5. Edelweiss Tokio Life has provided a term cover to the entire contingent:  Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance is a proud sponsor of Team India at the Olympics. Thus, Edelweiss Tokio Life has provided life -cover of INR 1 crore to each athlete going to Rio to represent India.