After a year-long postponement, the D-day finally arrived as the Tokyo Olympics has commenced on July 23 (Friday). With high hopes from the Indian contingent, which is also the largest to ever be sent to an Olympics, the whole country is waiting to see how the medal contenders from Team India respond in the marquee event.

The Indian contingent comprises several stalwarts such as Mary Kom, Manpreet Singh-led Indian hockey men’s team, PV Sindhu, Neeraj Chopra, Bajrang Punia, Deepika Kumari, Atanu Das, Sania Mirza, Ankita Raina, Vinesh Phogat among various others. Moving on from the missed opportunities in the 2016 Rio Olympics, the Indian contingent is confident enough that they will be able to bring more laurels and medals to the country this time.

Ahead of the Tokyo Olympics curtain-raiser, on Friday evening (July 23) IST, ace sand-artist Sudarshan Pattnaik shared his recent work on Twitter, which was displayed at the Puri beach, Orissa on the eve of Tokyo 2020.

Pattnaik is a known name and is very popular for his picturesque sand-art work in Orissa. 

Talking about Day 1 of the Tokyo 2020, there wasn’t much action for Team India as the event saw the star archers, in the form of Deepika Kumari, Atanu Das, etc, take centrestage. While Deepika attained the 9th spot in the ranking round, her better half Atanu as well as Pravin Jadhav and Tarundeep Rai finished 31st, 35th and 37th respectively in the Men’s Ranking round. As a result, both the Indian men’s team and the mixed team in archery have been seeded 9th.

Talking about the Tokyo 2020 opening ceremony, Mary Kom and hockey men’s team captain Manpreet Singh will be seen as India’s flag-bearers. For the unversed, a total of 20 Indian athletes and six officials will feature in the Indian contingent during the opening ceremony on Friday evening.