Tokyo 2020: 19 athletes and six officials from India to attend opening ceremony as paddlers opt out

Earlier, a total of 20 Indian athletes from seven sports and six officials were announced to participate in the Olympics opening ceremony. But paddlers Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra have opted to pull out with their mixed doubles campaign scheduled the following day on Saturday (July 24).

The names of both the players were there in the list of participants at the opening ceremony but as it turns out, it was an error on the part of the Indian officials who compiled the list. Tennis player Ankita Raina will now be replacing the table tennis stars.

The Asian Games bronze-medallist Kamal and Batra play the mighty Chinese Taipei pairing of Lin Yun-Ju and Cheng I-Ching in the round of 16 match. The pair from Chinese Taipei is seeded third and is currently number one in world rankings.

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Apart from the table tennis pair, athletes from sports like shooting, badminton, archery and hockey, will also give the ceremony a miss as the Indian delegation is not willing to expose them to the risk of contracting the virus with their events lined up on Saturday (July 24).

Boxing great M C Mary Kom and Indian hockey team skipper Manpreet Singh will be the flag-bearers at Japan National Stadium.

Apart from them, other boxers including Lovlina Borgohain, Pooja Rani, Amit Panghal, Manish Kaushik, Ashish Kumar and Satish Kumar will also participate in the ceremony.

Lone fencer C A Bhavani Devi, gymnast Pranati Naik and swimmer Sajan Prakash besides as many as eight boxers will also be there.

(With Agency inputs)