India's ace badminton player PV Sindhu has earned a quota for the Paris 2024 Olympics along with four other shuttlers, according to the latest ‘Race to Paris’ Ranking List released by the Badminton World Federation (BWF). The Paris Olympics Games are scheduled to begin in June. PV Sindhu, a former world champion, who won silver at the 2016 Olympics and bronze at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, secured the coveted berth by ranking 12th on the list released on April 30, as reported by Olympics.com.
Top 16 Players qualify for Paris Olympics
Notably, the top 16 players (with a maximum of two per country) in the men’s and women’s ‘Race to Paris’ rankings have qualified for the Olympics. The qualification period for this major multi-sport event began on May 1, 2023 and concluded on April 28, 2024. A total of 35 players have earned Olympic quotas through this ranking list, which also includes spots reserved for continental representation.
Prannoy, Lakshya and Chirag-Satwik secure Olympic quotas
In men's singles, India's HS Prannoy, who is ranked ninth, and Lakshya Sen, the Commonwealth Games champion ranked 13th, both secured their quotas for the Paris 2024 Olympics. India's other two quotas were achieved in doubles category. Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy claimed the third position in the men's doubles ranking, while Ashwini Ponappa and Tanisha Crasto were 13th in the women's doubles. There is no Indian duo in contention to win a quota in mixed doubles.
Last year, Chirag and Satwik made history by becoming the first Indian doubles pair to achieve the world number-one ranking following their gold medal at the Asian Games in Hangzhou. On the other hand, Ashwini and Crasto won the Abu Dhabi Masters and the Guwahati Masters, both Super 100 championships, and were runners-up at the Syed Modi International BWF Super 300 tournament.
India are set to field their largest badminton team in the upcoming Olympics. Notably, seven Indian shuttlers played in 2016 at the Rio Olympics.
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