Tokyo: PV Sindhu, Manika Batra, and MC Mary Kom won their matches at the Tokyo Olympics, giving hope to the Indian camp disappointed by the shooters’ poor show for the second day in a row, but the men’s hockey team ended up in a 1-7 humiliation at the hands of Australia. The defeat became unbearable. After weightlifter Mirabai Chanu won a silver medal on the first day of the competition, Sindhu and Mary Kom performed to their laurels to make it to the next round. Manika struggled but she also managed to reach the third round of table tennis.
Thanks to Chanu’s medal, India is currently joint 21st in the medal tally. The shooters were denied medals on the second day as well but India’s biggest disappointment came from the men’s hockey team, which Australia danced to for a full 60 minutes. Daniel Beale (10th), Jeremy Hayward (21st), Flynn Oglivi (23rd), Joshua Beltz (26th), Black Gowers (40th and 42nd), and Tim Brand (51st) scored for Australia. Dilpreet Singh scored the only goal for India in the 34th minute. This is India’s worst defeat since Graham Reid took over as coach.
The Rio Olympic’s disappointment in shooting continued for the second day in a row in Tokyo. Manu Bhaker and Yashaswini Singh Deswal in women’s 10m air pistol and Deepak Kumar and Divyansh Singh Panwar in men’s 10m air rifle failed to qualify for the finals. World number two shooter Manu, 19, started off well and looked to break into the top eight but a technical snag in her pistol affected her performance and eventually finished 12th. Manu’s score was 575 while the cut-off was 577.
Yashaswini Singh Deswal, another Olympic debutant shooter, recovered from a poor start to score 574 and finished 13th. In the men’s 10m air rifle event, Deepak Kumar and Divyansh Singh Panwar crashed out of the qualification by finishing 26th and 32nd respectively. In the end, Deepak scored 624.7 points and Divyansh scored 622.8 points in six series. In skeet, Angad Veer Bajwa is leading 11th with 73 points after three rounds and is in the race for a place in the finals. Another skeet shooter Mairaj Khan is ranked 25th with a score of 71.
World champion Sindhu, India’s medal hope in badminton, registered an easy straight games win over Israel’s Ksenia Polikarpova in women’s singles. Sixth seed Sindhu, a Rio Olympic silver medalist, won the match 21-7, 21-10 in 28 minutes against her 58th-ranked Israeli rival. World No. 7 Sindhu will now face Hong Kong’s Chiung Engan Yi, who is ranked 34th in the world rankings. Sunday was a mixed success for India in boxing and table tennis. In boxing, six-time world champion Mary Kom (51kg) advanced to the pre-quarterfinals of the Olympic Games by defeating Miguelina Hernandez García of the Republic of Domenica in the opening round.
London Olympics 2012 bronze medalist Mary Kom beat Pan American Games bronze medalist 4-1 but Manish Kaushik lost to Britain’s Luke McCormack in the men’s section by the same margin. In table tennis, World No. 62 Manika defeated 20th seed Margaret Pesotska of Ukraine 4-3 (4-11, 4-11, 11-7, 12) after going down initially in a contest that lasted 57 minutes. -10, 8-11, 11-5, 11-7). She will face Austria’s Sofia Polkanova on Monday in the third round. Earlier, Ji Sathiyan had held a 3-1 lead against Lam Siu Hong of Hong Kong in the second round of men’s singles but eventually won the match 3-4 (7-11, 11-7, 11-). 4, 11-5, 9-11, 10-12, 6-11).
In tennis, Sania Mirza and Ankita Raina crashed out of the women’s doubles after losing 6-0, 7-6, 10-8 to Nadia and Lyudmila Kichenok sisters of Ukraine. Pranati Nayak, India’s lone gymnast in gymnastics, failed to make it to the all-around finals of the artistic gymnastics event. In rowing, Arjun Lal Jat and Arvind Singh made it to the semi-finals of the Tokyo Olympics by finishing third in the repechage round of the men’s sailing lightweight double skill event.
In Sailing, Netra Kumanan is running 27th after two races while Vishnu Saravanan is 14th after her first race. In swimming, Mana Patel failed to make the semi-finals after finishing second in her heat in the women’s 100m backstroke event. In the men’s 50m backstrokes, Srihari Nataraj finished fifth in his heat and thus failed to make the semi-finals.
