Holding a national flag at the biggest sporting event in the world - Olympic Games - is of great value. India has seen some stalwarts walking with the national flag at the Games and this year too, it is no exception.
For the upcoming Paris Games, two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu and ace table tennis star Sharath Kamal will hold the tricolour in the opening ceremony. 18 athletes have carried the Indian flag at the Summer Games.
Who was the first Indian flag-bearer
The first flag-bearer at the Olympic Games was sprinter Purma Banerjee, who carried the flag at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium. After India gained Independence in 1947, men's football team's first captain Dr Talimeren Ao carried the tricoulour in the 1948 London Games.
Who else carried India's flag?
There have been other prominent athletes too who have held the flag at the opening ceremony. The likes of former hockey gold-medallists Lal Shah Bhokhari (1932), Dhyan Chand (1936) and Balbir Singh Sr (1952 and 1956) have also carried the flag. Balbir Singh is the only Indian to hold the flag twice in the opening ceremony of the Games.
India's first individual gold medallist Abhinav Bindra was the flag-bearer at the 2016 Rio Games. In the previous Games in Tokyo in 2021, India had Mary Kom and Manpreet Singh, jointly holding the flag, making it the first occassion that two Indians took the flag together in Olympics.
India's first women flag-bearer was sprinter Shiny-Abraham Wilson, while Anju Bobby George was the second. Mary Kom was the third, while Sindhu will be the fourth woman to hold the flag.
List of all Indian flag-bearers at the Olympic Games:
1920: Purma Banerjee (athletics)
1932: Lal Shah Bhokari (hockey)
1936: Dhyan Chand (hockey)
1948: Talimeren Ao (football)
1952: Balbir Singh Sr (hockey)
1956: Balbir Singh Sr (hockey)
1964: Gurbachan Singh Randhawa (athletics)
1972: Desmond-Neville Devine Jones (boxing)
1984: Zafar Iqbal (hockey)
1988: Kartar Singh Dhillon (wrestling)
1992: Shiny-Abraham Wilson (athletics)
1996: Pargat Singh (hockey)
2000: Leander Paes (tennis)
2004: Anju Bobby George (athletics)
2008: Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore (shooting)
2012: Sushil Kumar (wrestling)
2016: Abhinav Bindra (shooting)
2020: Mary Kom (boxing) and Manpreet Singh (hockey)
2024: Sharath Kamal (table tennis) and PV Sindhu (badminton)
