After a disappointing loss to World No. 1 Tai Tzu Ying in the women’s singles semi-final, Sindhu was at her best, playing her natural style of aggressive badminton to outclass He Bingiao and win the women’s singles bronze medal at Tokyo Olympics.
She defeated He Bingjiao 21-15, 21-13 in just 53 minutes in a crunch match on Sunday. The Indian star was on top of her game, deflating her Chinese opponent with her guile and aggression, something that Tai didn’t allow her to do on Saturday.
Sindhu becomes only the 2nd Indian after Sushil Kumar won 2 individual Olympic medals. She is the first woman athlete from the country to do so. Sindhu is also only the 4th women’s singles player to win back-to-back medals at the Olympic Games.
Sindhu had won the women’s singles badminton silver at the Rio Olympics, which was also her Games debut. Sindhu had fallen agonizingly short of the gold medal as she lost the title match to Spain’s Carolina Marin despite winning the opening game five years ago.
Sindhu made the Forbes list of Highest-Paid Female Athletes in 2018 and 2019. She is the recipient of the sports honor Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, and India’s fourth-highest civilian award, the Padma Shri. She was also honoured with Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian award in India, in January 2020. Both her parents have been national-level volleyball players. Her father, Ramana, who was a member of the Indian volleyball team that won the bronze medal in the 1986 Seoul Asian Games, received the Arjuna Award in 2000 for his contribution to the sports.