PV Sindhu became India’s only women athlete in the history of the Olympics to win two medals as she won the Bronze medal in Tokyo 2020 followed by a silver medal in Rio 2016.
Sindhu won her bronze medal match against China’s He Bing Jiao in the bronze medal match in straight games (21-13, 21-15) to register this historic win.
With this achievement, she becomes the second Indian athlete from India who won two back-to-back medals at Olympic games after Wrestler Sushil Kumar.
Interestingly, Sushil won Bronze and silver in the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games in Beijing and Rio respectively.
The ace Indian shuttler put in a valiant effort but her Chinese Taipei opponent proved too good on the day as she suffered a heartbreaking loss. Sindhu lost 18-21 and 12-21 in the semi-final clash.
After winning the bronze medal, as compare to Rio Olympics the pressure was more when it comes to Tokyo 2020 as in the ongoing Olympics she was expected to win a medal for the nation.
“Very happy that I have won the bronze medal and very proud. It’s not easy to win back-to-back medals at the Olympics. It was very different in 2016 and it’s been very different in Rio,” Sindhu told NDTV.
She was asked that whether she will be meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and have ice cream with him as the Prime Minister promised Shuttler to have ice cream with him once the latter wins the medal at the Olympics.
“The pressure, the expectations were very high. It was very important for me to be calm and composed and just give my best. Being the first Indian woman to win two individual Olympic medals will give me the motivation to achieve a lot more and work harder,” she concluded.
PV Sindu has certainly inspired lot of young girls out there to take up this beautiful sport of Badminton professionally and it will be interesting to see how she shapes her career from her on and if she manages to win gold in next Olympics which will mean the circle of winning medal is complete now.