Paris Olympics 2024: Shot putter Abha Khatua’s name missing from final list of participating athletes

A total of 117 athletes and 140 support staff, including coaches and officials, will be on the plane to Paris to participate in the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympics. The list of athletes and support staff was officially approved by the Indian Sports Ministry on Wednesday.

However, in what is a surprise, shot putter Abha Khatua will not be competing at the Olympics after her name was missing from the final list. The reasons for the exclusion are not known, yet.

Khatua had secured her qualification through the world rankings quota and was also omitted from the World Athletics’ list of athletes in the Indian contingent.

The Indian athletics contingent is the largest with 29 athletes – 18 men and 11 women – followed by the shooting team. India will have 21 shooters, qualifying in every event in the discipline, a first for the nation.

The Indian men’s hockey team is the third largest contingent with 19 players with table tennis having eight players in the contingent.

Seven shuttlers are in the fray while wrestling, archery, and boxing teams will have six athletes each with four golfers being a part too.

Three tennis players, two athletes each in swimming, sailing while one athlete in rowing, judo, equestrian and weightlifting complete the Indian contingent.

The Indian contingent will also have the services of 140 support staff, that includes coaches, officials and the medical teams. While the Paris Organising Committee only permits 67 support staff for the Indian contingent to stay in the official Games Village, the Indian government has approved funding to cater to the remaining 73 support staff to stay outside the Games Village for the duration of the Games.

The 67 support staff who can stay inside the Games Village include 11 Indian Olympic Association officials and five medical team members.

The Paris Olympics commence on July 26 and will go on till August 11. India had sent 119 athletes to the Tokyo Olympics in which the nation won their first individual athletics gold medal through ace javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra.