The flag bearers during the Parade of Nations at the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games are the representative of their national values and Olympic ideals as well.

Purma Banerjee was the first Indian to carry the national flag at the Opening Ceremony of an Olympic Games. The 400m sprinter from India, however, carried the pre-independent national flag at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp.

Post-independence, when India participated in the 1948 Olympics, it was Talimeren Ao who became India’s flag bearer. Ao was a frontline footballer who captained India in their first international Football match. Besides being a talented sportsman, Ao was a physician by profession.

India’s first individual gold medallist, Abhinav Bindra was the flag bearer of India at Rio 2016 Olympics. It was Bindra’s last Olympics and he finished fourth in the finals of the 10-meter air rifle event. 

Other gold-medallists to carry the India’s flag were Lal Shah Bhokhari, the captain of the 1932 Olympic Hockey team, Dhyan Chand in 1936 Berlin Olympics, Balbir Singh and Zafar Iqbal who won gold in 1980 Moscow Games.

Balbir Singh is the only India to carry the flag twice at the Olympics twice – in 1952 and 1956.

Apart from the gold medallists, the other Olympic medallists who carried the Indian flag are Leander Paes, Rajyavardhan Rathore and Sushil Kumar.

Shiny-Abraham Wilson was the first Indian woman Olympic flag-bearer. Anju Bobby George was the second woman athlete who became the flag bearer at the Athens 2004 Olympics.

For the first time in the Olympics, India had two flag-bearers at the opening ceremony of the Summer Games at Tokyo 2020- Mary Kom and Manpreet Singh. At the Paris Olympics, India will be again represented by two sportsmen- PV Sindhu, the two time Olympic medallist and Sharath Kamal, India’s table tennis veteran who is set to represent the country in his fifth Olympics.

List of India’s Flag Bearers