The Indian roster featured three Olympic medalists from London, including badminton star Saina Nehwal, freestyle wrestler and four-time Olympian Yogeshwar Dutt, and rifle shooter Gagan Narang.

Several Indian athletes came close to increasing the medal haul, finishing in fourth place, including tennis tandem Mirza and Rohan Bopanna in the mixed doubles; Bindra, who narrowly missed out the podium by a half-point in the men's 10 m air rifle before retiring from the sport; and Karmakar, who surprised the global audience with her high-risk Produnova routine in the women's vault.

[18][19] Key: India men's field hockey team qualified for the Olympics by receiving a berth and earning the gold medal from the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon.

Avtar Singh earned a continental quota from the Asian region, as the highest-ranked Indian judoka outside of direct qualifying position in the IJF World Ranking List of 30 May 2016.

[30][31] India has qualified one boat in the men's single sculls for the Olympics at the 2016 Asia & Oceania Continental Qualification Regatta in Chungju, South Korea.

Aiming to appear at his fourth Olympics, Manavjit Singh Sandhu became the twelfth Indian to join the team, as the NRAI decided to exchange a spot in the 50 m rifle 3 positions (won by Sanjeev Rajput) with the men's trap.

10) teamed up with their partners Prarthana Thombare and six-time Olympian Leander Paes, respectively, in the men's and women's doubles by virtue of their top-10 ATP and WTA Ranking as of 6 June 2016.

He was provisionally replaced by Parveen Rana, but was later reinstated on 3 August when the National Anti-Doping Agency of India gave him a clean record on grounds that he had been a victim of sabotage.

[43] However the World Anti-Doping Agency appealed against this decision to drop the doping charges, following which Yadav was suspended for four years and disqualified from the Olympics by the Court of Arbitration on 18 August.