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Indian Olympic Association (IOA) has announced a 322-member Indian contingent including 215 athletes and 107 officials and support staff to represent the country at the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham, United Kingdom.
The IOA Secretary General, Rajeev Mehta has expected it to be "one of India's strongest squad" to deliver a better performance than last edition even with the exclusion of shooting from the Birmingham Games. Rajeev Mehta said, "We are sending one of our strongest squads ever to the CWG and even with a strength sport for us like shooting not being there, we are confident of bettering our performance from the last edition.
"Make no mistake, the competition will be world class and fierce but our athletes have prepared well and are fit and raring to go. We wish them all the very best," he added.
The Secretary General also thanked the government for supporting the Indian Olympics team and said, "It needs to be said that the Government of India led by the Hon. Prime Minister have provided unprecedented support to Olympic sports in recent years and our best ever performance at the Olympic Games stand testimony to that."
"We remain ever grateful for the same and are sure our athletes will ensure that rich rewards are reaped for the untiring efforts put in by them, most of all the Union Sports Ministry and the Sports Authority of India", he added.
Out of the 215 athletes, the games like athletics and hockey feature the biggest contingent with 37 and 36 entries respectively. The 37-members athletic contingent will feature 18 men and 19 women athletes including Tokyo 2020 gold medalist Neeraj Chopra, Hima Das, Dutee Chand, Manpreet Kaur, M. Sreeshankar among others.
Apart from them, Pooja Gehlot, Sakshi Malik, Vinesh Phogat among women wrestlers while Ravi Dahiya, Bajrang Punia among men wrestlers will be expected to put an exceptional fight for the medals at CWG 2022. Other athletes like weightlifter Mirabai Chanu, boxer Amit Panghal, badminton players PV Sindhu and Lakshya Sen are also expected to bring medals for India.