PM meets Rio Olympics-bound athletes, wishes them luck

New Delhi, Jul 4 () Prime Minister Narendra Modi today meet the Indian athletes who will represent the country at the forthcoming Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and wished them luck. At the function held at the Manekshaw Centre, PM Modi interacted individually with the sportspersons, and wished them luck for the August 5-21 Games. The dignitaries who attended the function were

Sports

Minister Jitendra Singh, Sports Secretary

Rajiv Yadav

, All

India Council of Sports

(AICS) Chairman

Vijay Malhotra

, Indian Olympic Association President N Ramachandran, Secretary General Rajeev Mehta,

Hockey India

President

Narinder Batra

, HI Secretary General

Mohammed Mushtaq Ahmed

among others. India will be sending its biggest ever contingent to the Olympics this year with more than 100 athletes having already qualified in 13 sporting disciplines. The previous highest was 83 that the country sent in the 2012 Olympics in

London

. More athletes are likely to qualify in the coming days, and the

Sports Ministry

and the

IOA

are expecting more than 110 to represent the country in the Games. Notable athletes who met the Prime Minister today were shooters Jitu Rai, Manavjit Singh Sandhu, Heena Sidhu, shuttlers PV Sindhu, K Srikanth, boxer Shiva Thapa, long distance runners

Sudha Singh

and

Lalita Babar

among others. The Indian women's hockey team along with chief coach

Neil Hawgood

and coach

C R Kumar

were also in attendance. National badminton coach Pullela Gopichand and boxing coach

Gurbax Singh Sandhu

were also part of the gathering. During the send-off function the athletes were seen taking selfies with the PM and his autographs. "Great to meet our Honourable PM Shri @narendramodi ji..Thank you for all your support.jai hind????" boxer Shiva Thapa later tweeted. Several of the Rio-qualified athletes gave the function a miss as they are currently training abroad. SSC ATK ATK