Most Indian athletes dream of representing the nation with the hope to wear a shirt with the Olympic rings on it. A few get a chance to play for India, a handful go to the Olympics and perhaps one in a billion ends up winning a medal.
PV Sindhu doesn't fall in any of those compartments. Two medals at successive Olympics make PV Sindhu the only Indian woman to achieve that feat.
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If we call the Silver in Rio 2016 a high point in Sindhu's career, then a well-deserved bronze in Tokyo is no less.
The habit of winning and domination started very early as she broke into the international circuit at the age of 14. A bronze at the 2009 Asian Sub-Junior Championship was the first big international medal for the Hyderabadi shuttler.
In 2012, when Saina Nehwal, the flag bearer of Indian women's badminton, won the bronze at the London Olympics, Sindhu was quietly working hard as the power center slowly started shifting towards PV Sindhu. While Saina taught Indians how to breach the Great Wall of China, Sindhu taught us how to dismantle the Chinese.
In 2013, Sindhu opened her World Championship account with a Bronze in Copenhagen. The next year, she repeated the success with another bronze in Guangzhou. In 2017 and 2018, Sindhu captured a silver each in Glasgow and Nanjing. Sindhu's biggest success came in 2019 when she became the first Indian to become a World Champion. Along with her 2016 Olympic Silver medal, Sindhu had already eclipsed what Saina had achieved.
But going past Saina and her records wasn't Sindhu's aim. Sindhu wanted to dominate and her record against top-ranked players proved her capabilities. Comparisons with Saina Nehwal were inevitable, but Sindhu has now reached a stage where those are immaterial.