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Legendary Indian boxer MC Mary Kom and men's hockey team captain Manpreet Singh are all set to be India's flag bearers at the opening ceremony of Tokyo Olympics 2020. Meanwhile, Bajrang Punia, who is being looked at as a prime contender for a medal at the coveted sporting event, will be the flag bearer at the closing ceremony of the games on August 8. The same has been confirmed after Indian Olympic Association (IOA) communicated to the organizing committee of the games. It should be noted that this is the first time that India will have two flag bearers at the Olympics - one and male - to ensure "gender parity".
It has also been corroborated by IOA Chief Narinder Batra. In the 2016 Summer Games at Rio de Janerio, the country's lone individual Olympic gold-medalist Abhinav Bindra, was the flag-bearer for the Indian contingent. The Tokyo Games are slated to begin on July 23 and over 100 athletes are set to take part at the showpiece event which had to be pushed back by a year owing to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
IOC makes provision for flag bearers from both genders
Earlier, the International Olympic Committee had made provisions for flag bearers from both genders during the opening ceremony at an executive meeting in 2020.
"...the IOC Executive Board also decided that there should be - for the first time ever - at least one female and one male athlete in every one of the 206 teams and the IOC Refugee Olympic Team participating at the Games of the Olympiad," IOC Chief Thomas Bach was quoted as saying.