India has won a total of 35 medals at the Olympics out of which 12 belong to the men's hockey team. Two of the individual medals belong to Norman Pritchard, who according to the records of the International Olympic Committee, had won silver in men's 200m and men's 200m hurdles at the 1900 Olympics while representing India. That topic is up for debate, though, with athletics' international sports federation, World Athletics, listing Pritchard as having competed for Great Britain at the 1900 Olympics.
Regardless, the presence of Pritchard in the IOC records makes him the earliest medal winner for India. It was slow moving for the country after that, which just two more individual medallists added for the rest of the 20th century but that has changed since 2000. (AP / PTI) Wrestler KD Jadhav is the first Indian in the country's independent history to win an individual medal.
Jadhav competed in the bantamweight freestyle category and won bronze. (Olympics) Leander Paes ended a medal drought that went on for three Games editions at the 1995 Atalanta Olympics. He was the first Indian in 44 years to win an individual medal and it was the first for the country since the men's hockey team's gold in 1980.
Paes lost in the semi-finals to eventual gold medal winner Andre Agassi and faced Brazil's Fernando Meligeni in the bronze medal match. He won 3-6, 6-2, 6-4.(Getty Images) Karnam Malleswari made history at Sydney 2000 by winning a bronze in weightlifting and becoming the first Indian .