Posted by Yesterday Evening (IST) at the opening ceremony the Olympics were declared open, few Indian Athletes and officials were part of the parade as a majority of athlete’s were sitting out due to Covid restrictions and to avoid exposure.
WOMEN’S 10M AIR RIFLE : Indian Athletes Elavenil Valarivan and Apurvi Chandela were part of the Women’s 10m Air rifle qualification round. Both shooters were off to a good start, after a couple of sets India’s Apurvi Chandela was nearly out of the tournament as she failed to make an impact and was dropped around 30’s in the rankings and finished with 621.9 points and was ranked 36. Elavenil Valarivan’s third set saw a hike in her rankings to the top 10 where she was expected to make it to the top 8 to qualify for the finals but failed to do so as she finsihed 16th in the ranking with 626.5 points. India fails to grab the finals berth. Norway’s Janette Hegg was first in the rankings with 632.9 points and broke the qualification Olympic record.
MEN’S 10M AIR PISTOL Saurabh Chaudhary and Abhishek Verma are the Indian duo at the event. Saurabh Chaudhary gets off to a flyer consistently maintaining the top 8 for qualifying for the next medal round, he finishes at the top of the chart with 586 points. Abhishek Verma just couldn’t got going at the start and later made a strong comeback consistently in an around the top 8, towards the end fails to make the top 8 as he drops and finishes on 17th rank with 575 points.
MEN’S 10M AIR PISTOL FINAL Saurabh Chaudhary the top ranked is the only Indian in the top 8 for the medal event. Saurabh didn’t have the best of the start as he was below 5 in the rankings, youngsters Saurabh couldn’t continue his dream run he had in the qualification round as he finished 7th in the final round with 137.5 points.
MIX TEAM ARCHERY EVENT (PRE QUARTERFINAL) Archery mixed team event Deepika Kumari and Pravin Jadhav pair up to represent India. India take on Chinese Taipei for the Quarterfinal berth. The Chinese Taipei duo were off to a good start bagging 2 points. India were trailing 3-1 in the match and make a stunning comeback as India bag in a few set wins and defeat the Chinese Taipei duo 5-3. India needed a perfect 10 in the deciding set and it was Deepika Kumari who steeped up and ensured India proceed further in the medal event. India now face South Korea who dominated day 0 in individual ranking events both men and women.
MIXED TEAM ARCHERY QUARTERFINAL Deepika Kumari and Pravin Jadhav took on South Koreans for quarterfinal. South Koreans duo defeated the Indian duo 6-2 in the quarterfinals. After loosing 2 opening sets, Indian duo made a comeback and bagged the third set but the Koreans grabbed the 4th set and had won the match 6-2. So, that’s the end of the mixed team archery event for India.
MEN’S HOCKEY POOL GAME Hockey event and India play New Zealand in the pool game. Lots of action and was a real high intensity game, India hold it at the end. India take the opening pool game 3-2 defeating New Zealand. India started of a bit slow with New Zealand opening the goal, India bounced back as Rupinder Pal Singh and Harmanpreet Singh scored against the kiwis. Safe gloves of experienced Sreejesh ensured India start their Hockey journey at the Tokyo Olympics 2020 on a winning note. India will now face Australia tomorrow for their next pool game.
WOMEN’S HOCKEY POOL GAME Indian women Hockey team is up against Netherlands. Netherlands Felice scored the first goal and India reply soon with a goal and the scoreline was levelled till the third set. Netherland score 3 goals and end the third quarter with a 4-1 lead. Netherland make a goal more and it was the full time and Indian women fail to bounce back.
ROWING MEN Lightweight Men’s Double Sculls (Rowing), Indian duo Arvind Singh and Arjun Jat Lal finished 5th in the heats with a time of 6:40:33 and fail to qualify for the semifinal A/B, Indian duo were last at rankings (6) but just in time managed to overcome Uruguayan. Ireland topped the heat with time of 6:23:74. Arjun was the bower and Arvind took the responsibility of stroking, the Indians progress to the repechage race tomorrow.
JUDO WOMEN Women’s 48 KG category, India’s Shushila Likmabam competing against Hungary’s Eva Csernoviczki in the elimination round of 32 failed to qualify for the elimination round of 16.
WOMEN’S 49KG WEIGHTLIFTING Mirabai Chanu India’s key medal, 1st lift was a 84 KG in snatch, she then attempts for 87, was a good lift. Her competitor Chinese comes in and lifts 88KG first up and takes lead and then lifts 94 KG, breaks her won record. Mirabai finishes second and is in the next round.
WOMEN’S WEIGHTLIFTING 49KG (INDIA’S FIRST MEDAL AT TOKYO OLYMPICS 2020) Mirabai Chanu is the first Indian to win a medal at the Tokyo Olympics, she has a silver medal. She was ranked 2nd in the first round and then she was proceeded to the 2nd round. She in total lifted 202 KG, (87 KG in snatch and 115 KG in clean and jerk) during her 4 successful attempts, she lifted 110 KG and then attempted for 115 KG. China’s Zhihui Hou lifted total 210 KG with the gold medal and is also China’s second gold at Tokyo 2020. (1 was won earlier in 10M air rifle)
MEN’S BADMINTON SINGLE Sai Praneeth lost his group stage match against Israel’s Misha Zilberman in the group match. The first game was a close affair, Praneeth tried very hard but Zilberman managed to hold his nerve and took the win. In the second game Zilberman upped his game and took the game and the event.
MEN’S BADMINTON DOUBLES Indian Men’s double pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy won their opening group stage game they were up against Lee Yang and Wang Chi-Lin. The first set saw a comfortable win but the Chinese Taipei made a comeback in the second set and then the game was deciding in the 3rd and final set where the Indian duo did take the win for India in a close game.
MEN’S TENNIS SINGLES Sumit Nagal progressed to the second round, he outscored Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin. The first set was a close game but Nagal held his nerve in the key moments and won the first set. The second set was comfortable for Nagal but Istomin made a comeback and it was Istomin with a lead and the match was in the final set. 3rd set Nagal took a win and is proceeded to the next round.
TABLE TENNIS MIXED DOUBLES Nightmare for India as India don’t qualify for the quarterfinal after a big 0-4 defeat against the Chinese Taipei. Indian duo Manika Batra and Achanta Sharath Kamal were up against Chinese Taipei left-right combination of Yun Ju Lin and Cheng I Ching in the round of 16 who were ruthless and in 24 minutes handed India the big defeat.
WOMEN’S TABLE TENNIS SINGLES After a hard defeat in the mixed double event, Manika Batra bounced back strong in the singles event as she in 4 straight sets in exact 30 minutes of time took the win and is proceeded to the next round. Manika was up against Britain’s Tin-Tin Ho who was never given a chance to bounce back in the game, Manika at her best.
WOMEN’S TABLE TENNIS SINGLES Sutirtha Mukherjee in her debut Olympic put up a great exhibition to take out Sweden’s high positioned Linda Bergstrom. It wasn’t too easy in the middle but did well and managed to bag a win on her debut.
MEN’S WELTERWEIGHT BOXING EVENT Vikas Krishan lost 0-5 to Japan’s Mensah Okazawa in the round of 32. He lost the first and second set, with a big task to do in the third and final set he failed to outscore Okazawa and is now out of the tournament with the defeat.
That was all India had on schedule, Day 1 of the Tokyo Olympics 2020.
Bureau of sports 