2024-03-17 19:04:50
New Delhi: The Indian men’s and women’s teams on Monday created history by qualifying for the Olympics for the first time on the basis of their world ranking. The World Team Championships in Busan last month was the final qualifying tournament for the Paris Olympics and after its conclusion there were seven places left in the team events, for which teams were selected based on their ranking. “The top-ranked teams in the latest World Team Rankings that did not qualify have secured their tickets for Paris 2024,” the IITF said.
In the women’s event, India was ranked 13th and qualified for the Paris Olympics along with Poland (12), Sweden (15) and Thailand. In the men’s team event, Croatia (12), India (15) and Slovenia (11) also won tickets for the Paris Olympics. Veteran Indian player Sharath Kamal tweeted, ‘India has finally qualified for the team event for the Olympics. I wanted to see this for a long time. Despite playing in the Olympics for the fifth time, it is really very special. Congratulations to the women’s team who also achieved the historic quota.
This is a spectacular achievement in Indian table tennis history as it will be the first time the country will be participating in the team event since its inclusion in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Both the Indian teams had missed the Olympic ticket after losing in the pre-quarterfinals of the ITTF World Team Championship. The men’s team lost 0-3 to South Korea and the women’s team lost 1-3 to Chinese Taipei.