Weightlifter Mirabai Chanu got India off the mark with a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics on Saturday.
A look at how India's athletes fared:
WEIGHTLIFTING
Pint-sized weightlifter Mirabai Chanu lifted the spirits of an entire nation with an incredibly composed silver-winning show as India found itself on the Olympics medals table on the very first day of competitions, a feat so remarkable that it more than made up for some disappointments.
Competing in her second Olympics, Chanu claimed the silver medal in the 49kg category with a total of 202kg (87kg+115kg) as the country of over a billion but painfully short of consistent Olympic success erupted in joy.
Used to medal-less opening days, Chanu's silver placed India 12th on the tally, a feat achieved for the first time ever.
HOCKEY
On the hockey field, there were mixed emotions with the men's team putting it past a lower-ranked New Zealand 3-2 but women enduring a 1-5 hammering at the hands of world no.1 the Netherlands.
TENNIS
At the tennis courts, away from the spotlight, Sumit Nagal became only the third Indian to win a men's singles match at the Games when he edged past Denis Istomin in a three-setter.
Nagal got the better of Istomin 6-4, 6-7(6), 6-4 in two hours and 34 minutes on court 10 at the Ariake Tennis Centre to set up a second-round clash with world number two Daniil Medvedev.
Zeeshan Ali was the first Indian to win a singles match at the 1988 Seoul Games when he beat Victo Caballero from Paraguay.
BADMINTON
It was a bitter-sweet day for the shuttlers though.
The men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty shocked the World No. 3 pair of Yang Lee and Chi-Lin Wang of Chinese Taipei but in men's singles, 13th seed B Sai Praneeth didn't know what hit him as he went down to Israel's world number 47 Misha Zilberman in a 41-minute clash.
TABLE TENNIS
Manika Batra and Sutirtha Mukherjee made promising starts in their table tennis women's singles campaign.
While Manika defeated Tin-Tin Ho of Britain 4-0 in her singles opener, 98th-ranked Sutirtha made a strong impression on her Olympics debut with a come-from-behind 4-3 win against 78th-ranked Linda Bergstrom of Sweden.
However, the hopes of a mixed doubles medal in the Games went up in smoke quite quickly when Manika and A Sharath Kamal lost 0-4 to third seeds Lin Yun-Ju and Cheng I-Ching of Chinese Taipei.
BOXING
The lone boxer in fray was Vikas Krishan (69kg) and it was a case of shattered dreams for him. Entering the ring with an injured shoulder, Vikas could hardly put up a fight against local favourite Sewonrets Quincy Mensah Okazawa and was outpunched 0-5.
To add to it, he also ended up sustaining a cut under his left eye, leaving thoroughly bruised and battered from his third Olympics, which, in all probability, was his last.
JUDO
There were no big surprises when judoka Sushila Devi lost her first round bout and the men's lightweight double sculls rowers Arvind Singh and Arjun Lal Jat finished fifth in the heats. The rower duo will compete in the repechage round on Sunday while Sushila will take an early flight home.
SHOOTING
The major disappointment was the shooting performance.
The shooters couldn't live up to the hype with Saurabh Chaudhary's top finish in the 10m air pistol qualification being the only high point of the day for the contingent.
The 19-year-old Chaudhary faltered in the finals of his debut Olympics but can be proud of the overall effort.
And later, Chaudhary buckled under the pressure that Olympics is known for in the finals after a qualification round that was nothing short of sensational.
In the women's 10m air rifle event, neither Elavenil Valarivan nor Apurvi Chandela could make the finals.
ARCHERY
The archers caused an upset by beating Chinese Taipei but were found wanting against Korea in the quarter-final, losing the match as was expected in the mixed team event.
The in-form Deepika Kumari and Pravin Jadhav paired up in archery's mixed doubles event but were no match for the Koreans, who won despite not being at their best.
