In a country where men dominate the majority of the sports, the rise of women at the Tokyo Olympics this year is no less than magnificent.
Women athletes challenged the ordinary and paved a path for more young girls and women to follow.
When Karnam Malleshwari lifted the Bronze in Sydney 2000, making her the first Indian weightlifter to win an Olympic medal, the achievement inspired the birth of many more sportswomen in the country.
It gave self-belief to Indian women athletes to know that they too could bring a lot of pride to the nation.
The next generation Indian sportswomen -- Mary Kom, Sania Mirza, Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu, Sakshi Malik -- fought through the odds and laid claim to being among the best in the world by winning Olympic medals.
The 2021 Olympics reinforced the indomitable spirit of sportswomen. With quiet humility and sheer grit, they have managed to not only win medals, but have also shown us that it is possible to dream.
Let's take a look at the major moments from the Tokyo Olympics that made us rally behind our incredible sportswomen.
Mirabai Chanu (49kg) became the first Indian weightlifter to win a silver medal in the Olympics. Chanu lifted a total of 202 kg (87kg in snatch and 115kg in clean and jerk) during her four successful attempts across the competition.?
With this, Chanu now has silver in the 2014 Commonwealth Games, gold in the 2017 World Championships, and 2018 Commonwealth Games, and Bronze in 2020 Asian Championships.
With this monumental silver medal, Chanu has become the second Indian weightlifter to win an Olympic medal after Karnam Malleswari bagged bronze in the 69kg category at the 2000 Sydney Games when the weightlifting arena was opened to women for the first time.
Mirabai got off to a flying start after she completed her lift of 84 kg in the first attempt in snatch. Manipur-born weightlifter then proceeded to complete the 87kg weight lift with ease but failed to complete the 89kg lift in her last attempt.
2020 saw her break her own national record and lift 203 kilos to take home gold at the National Championships.?
Mirabai's success did not go unnoticed in India as she was awarded both the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna and the Padma Shri in 2018. She is only 26 and here to stay.
Shuttling to glory, ace badminton player PV Sindhu clinched Bronze at the Tokyo Olympics this year. This was also India's second medal at the Games.
Sindhu created history as the first Indian woman to win 2 consecutive Olympic medals. She had earlier made the country proud by clinching a Silver at Summer Olympics in Rio in 2016.??
She is the first Indian to become the Badminton World Champion and only the second individual athlete from India to win two consecutive medals at the Olympic Games.?
Sindhu defeated He Bingjiao 21-13, 21-15, and it is said that she and her coach had practiced for nearly two months to face He at the court.?
Boxer Lovlina Borgohain became the third Indian athlete at the Tokyo Olympics after weightlifter Mirabai Chanu and shuttler PV Sindhu to clinch a medal -- a bronze -- after she lost her welterweight semifinal bout to Turkey's Busenaz Surmeneli at the Ryogoku Kokugikan Arena.
The 23-year-old from Golaghat district of Assam lost her 64/69kg category last-four bout in a unanimous decision to Busenaz, who is among the best in the business and is ranked No. 1.
Borgohain, a two-time world championship bronze-medallist and the first female boxer from Assam to qualify for the Games, displayed tremendous calm in the face of a plucky opponent, who had beaten her in the past.
She was aggressive to start with, followed it up with a tremendous counter-attacking game, and kept her defence tight in the final three minutes to emerge triumphantly.
Lovlina battled COVID in 2020 and missed a training trip to Europe because of the deadly virus-borne illness. She let out a huge scream after the referee raised her hand, pent-up emotions finally getting the better of her.
For the 2024 Paris Olympics, Lovlina's eyes are set on Gold.
Aditi Ashok broke the glass ceiling without taking a medal home.
The 23-year-old from Bengaluru fell narrowly short of finishing on the podium by a whisker. Aditi had millions of Indians searching for golfing terms, a sport traditionally dominated by men.
In the 2016 Rio Olympics, she finished 41st, and this time, she finished 4th -- and it's only going to get better from here.
The Indian women's national field hockey team, a team of champions, missed the bronze but won heart with their stellar performance at the Tokyo Olympics. The team finished fourth in a historic campaign at the Games.?
Rani Rampal¡¯s team lost the Hockey Bronze Medal match 3-4 to the Rio Olympic champions, Great Britain, at the Oi Hockey Stadium in Tokyo.
Even before the buzzer went off in the Bronze medal match, India made history in Tokyo Olympics as Rani Rampal¡¯s team became the first women¡¯s hockey team from the country to make it to the semi-final.?
India women dropped to their knees in heartbreak as the buzzer went off and they put relentless pressure on Great Britain in the final quarter.
Goalkeeper Savita Punia, famously being called Save-ita, was inconsolable as she poured her emotions out after India missed the bronze medal by a whisker.
But reaching the semis and playing the world number two Australia was perhaps the most unprecedented moment in the Olympics.
Hailing from the strong land of Punjab, Kamalpreet Kaur became the first Indian woman to breach the 65m barrier in the discus throw.
The COVID-19 lockdown had wreaked havoc on her mental health to such an extent that discus thrower Kamalpreet Kaur had started trying her hand in cricket to handle the psychological toll of the shutdown.
Despite the hardships, Kaur¡¯s first love and now she stands within striking distance of fetching India a historic athletics medal at the Olympic Games after qualifying for the finals with a 64m throw, a brilliant effort.
Hailing from Kabarwala village on the Malout-Abohar national highway in Punjab, Kaur was born to a humble farmer family.
Finishing sixth in the finals in your debut Olympics performance is no small feat.
India finished with the best-ever Olympic tally this year, with conversations around better training facilities, fairer pay, and representation running rife. From here, there's no looking back.
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