India at Rio - Review of my Predictions

Hockey - Wanted the men's team to get to the semis but they crashed out in the quarters. Women's not much was expected. No medals were expected none obtained. 

Tennis - No medals expected and none obtained. The mixed doubles team came close to the medals but lost out in the bronze medal match up. 

Swimming - The two Indians were not even close to any contention. 

Table Tennis - All lost in the first rounds. No medals were expected none obtained. 

Judo - Avtar Singh lost in the first round. No medals were expected none obtained. 

Golf - No medals were expected none obtained. Aditi was doing well on the first 2 days but lost out in the next 2. 

Athletics - Expected few to make it beyond the first round - Except Lalita Babar (who created a new National record) no one did that. Good to see the Manish finishing in 13th in 20km walk and Gopi and Ram finishing 25th and 26th in marathon with personal bests. Tintu Luka, Vikas Gowda, Renjith, relay teams have all been a disappointment. 

No medals were expected none obtained. 

Rowing : It was good to see Dattu Bhokanlal finish a credible 13th. No medals were expected none obtained. 

Badminton : Personally I didn't expect a medal. I expected the doubles team to finish in the group stage itself, which they did. I expected Srikanth to lose to Lin Dan which he did. I expected Saina to lose to Li Xieurui in the quarters but she lost out in the group stage due to injury. Sindhu was a surprise I thought she would lose out in the pre-quarters or quarters but she went all the way to the finals. 

No medals were expected but we obtained a silver. 

Archery : I was expecting at least 1 medal from the women's team or individual. Women's team lost to Russia in the quarters in a shoot off and all individuals expect Laxmirani Majhi came till the pre-quarters. Atanu Das was a the stand out performer who finished 5th in the qualifier round and he shot well in the subsequent rounds but ran into a very tough opponent in the pre-quarters. 

At least 1 medal was expected and none obtained. 

Boxing : Expected at least one medal from Shiva Thapa - He lost in the first round to the eventual Gold Medalist. Vikas lost to the silver medalist in the quarters and Manoj lost in the pre-quarters to the Gold Medalist. 

At least 1 medal was expected and none obtained. 

Wrestling : Was expecting Yogeshwar and Vinesh Phogat to win us medals. Vinesh got injured in the quarter finals and Yogeshwar didn't get going at all. Surprisingly Sakshi Malik won a medal. 

2 medals were expected and we obtained a bronze medal. 

Gymnastics : Expected Dipa Karmakar to get to the finals in the vault which she did. Didn't expect her to finish 4th in the finals. No medals were expected none obtained. 

Weightlifting : Mirabhai Chanu had an outside chance of a medal - All that she had to do was register the initial lift that she planned in the clean and jerk to get the bronze. But she didn't register any lift and lost out. I was completely wrong in mentioning that Sathish will have an outside chance, the field is in a different league all together. No medals were expected none obtained. 

Shooting : Shooting team let us down big time at Rio. Only Abhinav and Jitu got to the finals in one event each. Abhinav got out in the 4th position after a shoot off and Jitu finished last in the finals. Mairaj got close to getting into the semis, he was tied with 5 others but lost out in the shoot off for the spot in the semis. Expected Jitu to pick up 1 or 2 medals, Gagan/Abhinav to win in 10m air rifle, our women team to get one medal but nothing happened. 

Expected at least 3 medals (best case 6) but nothing obtained. 

Overall Performances 

We don't expect our athletes to beat a Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt but we expect them to at least meet their best performances if not beat it. Most of them failed to do that. 

Excellent

1) Obviously the medal winners - Sindhu and Sakshi Malik
2) Manish Rawat - Finishing 13th in the Mens 20km Walk
3) Lalita Babar - Creating a new National Record in the heats and finishing 10th in the finals (Her finals performance was not as good as per heats - this is the second time she is doing this)
4) Gopi Thanackal and Ram Kheta finishing 25th and 26th in the Mens marathon with Personal Bests
5) Dipa Karmakar finishing 4th in the finals

Good
1) Srikanth Kidambi did well to get to the quarters but lost out to Lin dan
2) Dattu Bhokanlal finishing 13th in Rowing
3) Atanu Das in Mens archery 


Average
1) Hockey Teams - Mens' team 
2) Mixed Doubles team - For all the politics they should have won a medal
3) Archery Womens both in team and individual - There needs to be something done about this team, they keep struggling in the big stage. 
4) Sathish bettering his Commonwealth games Gold medal winning lift 


Bad
1) Relay teams
2) Renjith Maheswary
3) Rest of the Athletics team who didn't meet their PBs
4) Wrestling team except Sakshi and Vinesh
5) Mens and womens Tennis Doubles Team
6) Shooting Team - Didn't expect such a poor performance from the team. 
7) Boxing Team
8) Mirabhai Chanu - not registering a lift. 

Didn't expect much from the Table Tennis, Judo, Women's hockey team, Swimming team so there is no point in ranking them. 

Shooting and Archery teams definitely need a dedicated sports psychologist full-time. 

India at Rio - what to look forward today - last day August 21st

Today is the last day of Olympics. It has been a disappointing games for us in terms of medals. Would our medals count increase today - there is hope with Yogeshwar Dutt. 

Athletics : There are 3 Indians in the fray for mens marathon event - Ram Kheta, Gopi Thanackal and Nitendra Singh Rawat. All are 2.15+ runners whereas the top guys do 2.03... It's a huge field with 155 runners and we should be happy with top 50 finish by all 3 or if they achieve their PBs. Starts at 6pm ist

Wrestling : Yogeshwar is participating in the 65kg category. The bronze medallist from London is our last medal hope. He starts his campaign against a Mangolian wrestler in the round of 32. Yogeshwar keeps saying he will come back with gold, lets hope for the same. By winning a medal today he will join Sushil as the second Indian with more than one individual Olympics medal. Starts at 5pm IST

India at Rio - August 19th and 20th summary

Golf : Aditi Ashok had 2 good days and 2 bad days. She had a 3 under par scores on the good days and 8 and 5 over on the bad days. With that she had to finish 41st. End of day 3 after a 8 over any chance of a medal was gone. It would have been a good experience for the 18 year old. Let's see how she performs on the tour. Seriously golf doesn't belong in the Olympics. 

Wrestling : Sandeep Tomar lost in the pre-quarters and with the Russian who defeated him losing the next round, there was no chance of repechage. 

Athletics : The most disappointing thing about this Olympics has been the athletics team. The relay teams both finished 7th in their heats. The mens team were later disqualified for baton change violations. Sandeep Kumar finished 35th in the 50km walk. Kushbir Kaur finished 54th in the women's 20km walk and the other walker Sapana did not cross 8km. 

Badminton : Sindhu played really well in the finals. However, Marin was in a different league. Sindhu won the first game after being down for the most part of it. In second and third games she fought well but could not match up to Marin. Marin has been playing really well last 2 years and it was wonderful to see her win the gold at the Olympics, even though personally I would have loved to see Sindhu win it. It was also the first time there were no Chinese amongst the medals. 

Narsingh Yadav Saga - Questions to WFI, NADA & IOA

The Narsingh Yadav controversy came to sad end early this morning when CAS handed him a 4 year ban. 

Quota Place - Who gets to go to the Olympics

Narsingh Yadav won the Bronze medal in the World Championships in 2015 and won a quota for the country. As a general principle it was always the player who won the quota who goes for the tournament. Everyone thought Narsingh would go to Olympics, till the double olympic medal winner Sushil Singh opposed that. Sushil asked Wrestling Federation of India(WFI), to hold a bout between the two to decide who will go to Olympics. When WFI, rejected the request Sushil went to the courts and the courts upheld the decision of WFI. We all thought the story ended there. story continued

Failed Dope Test 

It seems WFI received a anonymous phone call saying the athletes in Sonepat facility are doping. In the aftermath all athletes were tested, Narsingh failed the test conducted on June 25th and the 2 sample tested on July 5th. The offense was supposed to be for taking methyldienolone, a substance known to increase muscle and weight. Everyone was surprised as the wrestlers were more looking to lose weight. His roommate also tested positive for the substance. Narsingh claimed it was a sabotage, WFI also agreed to it and appealed to NADA. 

In the interim Praveen Rana was announced as replacement, there was no way WFI were looking at Sushil Kumar as he had taken them to the courts. Sushil filed a complained against a fellow wrestler called Jitesh with the police and a FIR was filed. 

Sabotage Accepted 

NADA surprisingly accepted the sabotage claim, not sure what proof was shown. NADA's justification for overturning the ban and accepting the sabotage claim were

1) All samples before June 2nd of Narsingh was negative for any substances
2) The level of the substance has drastically reduced between June 25th sample and July 5th sample and Narsingh was not aware that he was positive from the June 25th sample when the sample was taken on July 5th. They presumed it was only a one time ingestion and that will not really help an athlete. 
3) NADA gave the benefit of doubt to Narsingh. 

This ruling came on August 1st, after a marathon hearing by NADA.  Immediately WFI requested that Narsingh Yadav be accepted as the official athlete and the poor Praveen Rana was dropped. All other wrestlers were participating at Georgia but Narsingh was made to wait in India. He was practicing in India and traveled only on 10th to Rio. 

WADA Challenges NADA Decision

WADA challenged the decision in CAS on 16th August just 3 days before his event. Narsingh was supposed to take part in the freestyle 74KG category on 19th August. CAS scheduled a ruling on 18th August. The hearing went for 4 hours and CAS finally ruled (Full details here) that there was no proof for sabotage and banned Narsingh for 4 years. 

The ruling said "Narsingh Yadav was sanctioned with a four-year ineligibility period starting today and that any period of provisional suspension or ineligibility effectively served by the athlete before the entry into force of this award shall be credited against the total period of ineligibility to be served. Furthermore, all competitive results obtained by Narsingh Yadav from and including 25 June 2016 shall be disqualified, with all resulting consequences (including forfeiture of medals, points and prizes)"

WADA did not accept the sabotage angle stating "The CAS Panel did not accept the argument of the athlete that he was the victim of sabotage and noted that there was no evidence that he bore no fault, nor that the anti-doping rule violation was not intentional. Therefore the standard 4-year period of ineligibility was imposed by the Panel. " 

Narsingh issued a statement later that he will prove his innocence. JSW who support him issued a statement believing in Narsingh's innocence and that they will continue to support him. 

Reacting to the development, IOA (Indian Olympic Association) secretary general Rajeev Mehta told PTI, "It's not a just loss for Narsingh at the Court of Arbitration for Sports but he was beaten by his compatriots who did not want to let him compete at the Olympics and not by his opponents. The picture is clear and neither I nor anyone has to say who's done the foul play. If you go back, you can easily connect the dots and would clearly know who could be the suspect. As of now, the culprits have been successful in stopping him from the Olympics, though we may challenge the order and minimise the ban. It's a loss for the country.

Mehta added, "We must go deep into the matter and the government should initiate a CBI inquiry into the matter. It's not a small thing, it's plaguing our country's sport and we must nip this in the bud. 

Questions 

1) What was the proof that NADA went by except presumption that as the levels of the substance had gone down between the two tests to prove sabotage?
2) What is the point of asking for a CBI inquiry now? Why was there no proper investigation done quickly on this? 
3) What was NADA thinking to clear someone based on presumption?
4) Why did IOA and the sports ministry go with NADA on this? It went all the way to the top with the PM issuing a statement that nothing will stop Narsingh from participating in Olympics after NADA cleared him. 
5) Was IOA/WFI/NADA in a hurry to prove that they will not allow an athlete to be victimized?
6) It is understandable that doubts will be raised on Sushil, but it is right on the part of IOA Secretary General to make a statement like this? 
7) Is Sushil really that stupid to think he will be given the quota if Narsingh gets the ban? In India, you cannot take on the strong people in the sports bodies and win and I am sure having been working with them so long he would have known that already. 
8) WADA is very clear, they go only by the results of tests. The ownership is on the athlete to prove his innocence. Which is what the CAS has upheld today, didn't NADA know about this?  

Conclusion 

India has lost a chance to participate in the event. NADA shouldn't have given Narsingh a clean chit just based on presumption. Sushil's (the only person to have won 2 Individual medals at olympics - till date) reputation is in taters. Poor Praveen Rana was used and dumped. NADA/IOA/WFI are the only people to be blamed for this mess. 

India at Rio - What to look forward today - August 19th

Golf : Day 3 of the golf event - Aditi Ashok is currently in the tied 8th position. She had a very good second day. Starts at 4pm IST

Wrestling : Sandeep Tomar is in the 57kg Freestyle wrestling. He starts his campaign against Victor Lebedev of Russia in the pre-quarters. We also had Narsingh Yadav in the 74kg category but because of the 4 year ban. Starts at 6:30pm ist

Athletics : 4*400 Relay for both men and women - The heats are at 5:10 am for Women and 5:40am for men. The men's team has the 3rd fastest time this year, hope at least they carry the qualification time into the olympics.  We have Sandeep Kumar in the Men's 50km walk, which starts at 4:30pm IST and we have Kushbir Kaur and Sapana in the women's 20km walk which starts at 11pm IST. 

Best result would be for the relay teams both men and women to qualify for the finals and the Walkers finishing in the top 20. 

Badminton : Sindhu plays her finals today against World # 1 Carolina Marin. Carolina has been phenomenal form last 2 years or so. Sindhu is also playing beautifully the whole tournament. Hope she joins Abhinav Bindra as the second Indian to win an Individual Gold. Let's Go Girl.. #GoForGoldSindhu Match starts at 6:55pm ist

India at Rio - August 18th Summary

Wrestling : After Sakshi's bronze medal yesterday, was expecting Babita to do one better. Unfortunately she lost her very first match against the Maria Prevolaraki, Greek wrestler 5-1. With Maria losing her quarters there was no second chance for Sakshi. 

Golf : Aditi Ashok has had a good second day. She now has a 6 under par score. She is currently in tied 8th spot(leader has 10 under par score). Two more days to go. 

Badminton : The biggest result of the day came from Sindhu. She defeated the World # 6 Okuhara in straight games 21-19, 21-10. First game was bit close but in the second Sindhu was very dominant. She is in superb form. 19th Finals against Carolina Marin. 

India at Rio - August 17th summary

Golf : Aditi Ashok is in a much better form than the men's golfers. She is currently tied 7th with a 3 under par score. 

Badminton : Heartbreak for Srikanth. He was nervous in the first game and lost it 6-21. He came back strong in the second game to win 21-11. The third game was close till around 17 points and then Lin Dan took a lead and never looked back to win the third game 21-18. The hopes of a medal in mens badminton ended with this loss. 

Athletics : Tintu Luka was in the fray in the 800m heats. She did what she does always, ran very fast in the first lap and then the wheels comes off. She finished 6th in the heat and 29th overall and failed to qualify for the semis. However she got a seasons best today which was good.

Wrestling : I was expecting Vinesh Phogat to win a medal today and she started very strong in the pre-quarters with a 11-0 victory. In the quarters she got injured badly and forfeited the match. She was sadly taken out on a stretcher. Hope she recovers soon. 

Sakshi Malik started her campaign with a 3-1 win in both her round of 32 and pre-quarters. In the quarters she lost a hard fought match to the Russian wrestler. Luckily the Russian went on to win her semis and get to the finals, which gave Sakshi a chance to compete in repechage rounds. She had to win 2 matches to win a bronze which she did. In both matches she was down but came back strongly in the nick of time to win the matches. In the last match she was down 0-5 but came back strong to win it 8-5.

Sakshi Malik won India's first medal in rio a bronze. This is also the first time an Indian women is winning a wrestling medal at the Olympics. Great job. 

India at Rio - What to look forward today - August 18th

Golf : Day 2 of the golf event - Aditi Ashok is currently in tied 7th position with a 3 under par score. Starts at 4pm IST

Badminton : Sindhu takes on Nozomi Okuhura of Japan, the world # 6. Let's hope she continues to carry her good form. A win will assure at least a Silver medal but a loss will take her to the bronze medal play off against Li Xuerui or Carolina Marin. Starts at 7:30pm IST.

Wrestling : Babita Kumari is in the womens 53kg. She is up against Maria Prevolaraki of Greece in the pre-quarters. Starts at 6:30pm IST. Hope she goes one better than Sakshi

India at Rio - August 16th summary

We just two Indians in fray today - Hardeep Singh in 98kg greco roman wrestling and Sindhu in badminton quarter finals.

Hardeep lost his match against the Turkish opponent. With the turkish wrestler losing in the semis,  there was no chance in repechage.  

The big result of the day was Sindhu defeating world #2 Wang Yihan in the quarter finals in straight games to advance to the semis.  Wang had the lead for the most part of the first game but Sindhu came back to tie it around point 15 and then it was going back and forth. Sindhu won the first set 22-20. In the second set Sindhu took initial lead and held on to it for long. At a point she had a 5 point advantage 18-13. Wang came back to draw level but Sindhu held her nerve to win the second game 21-19. She will be up against the winner of the all Japanese quarter finals between Nozomi Okuhara (world #6) and Akane Yamaguchi (world #12)

India at Rio - what to look forward today - August 17th

Hope the wait ends today. 

Golf : Aditi Ashok starts her campaign in the womens golf tournament.  Today is day 1. Starts at 4pm ist

Badminton : Srikanth takes on multiple world and Olympic champion Lin Dan. Srikanth has defeated Lin Dan earlier,  so he should go into the match strongly believing he can do it again. Starts at 5.50pm ist

Wrestling : Sakshi Malik is in the womens freestyle 58kg category.  She starts against Sweden's Johanna Mattsson, a world championship silver medallist in the round of 32. Match starts 6.38pm ist
Vinesh Phogat is in the womens freestyle 48kg category.  She starts against Romania's Emila Alina Vuc in the pre-quarters.  Match starts at 7pm ist. 

Hope our women wrestlers win our first medal today. 

Athletics : Tintu Luka is in the womens 800m heat 3. PT Usha, her coach keeps saying Tintu is a sub 2 runner. Best she can expect is get past the heats and get to the semis. Her heats is at 7.39pm ist

India at Rio - What to look forward today - August 16th

This list is shrinking sadly and we still wait for our first medal :(

Badminton : PV Sindhu faces Wang Yihan in the quarter finals. Wang Yihan is currently ranked World # 2. Good thing is that Sindhu has defeated Wang a few times and desperately hope she does it again today. Match is at 3:25am IST

Wrestling: Hardeep Singh is in the Greco Roman 98KG category. He starts his campaign against Turkish wrestler Cenk Ildem who has 2 bronze medals in the world championships (2011 and 2014) and few Bronze medals from the European championships. Hardeep qualified with the Silver medal in the Asian Championship. He was the only greco roman wrestler to get a direct qualification, Ravi who played yesterday came in due to disqualification of another athlete. Lets hope for the best. The event starts from 6:30pm IST. 

That's it :(

India at Rio - What is left still?

With just 6 more days left in the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics the Indian team is yet to open it's account in terms of medals. Things are looking very bleak at this moment and we might end up with a medal tally lesser than London. I hope we don't go to the levels of Beijing. 

Badminton - Sindhu and Srikanth are in the quarters and are playing beautifully. However, their quarterfinals opponents are going to be tough. 

Wrestling - We still have 7 members in wrestling who are still yet to start competing. This is the big medal hope for us. 

Athletics 
4*400 Relay for Men and Women - 12 Athletes (excluding 2 who have participated in 400m runs it is 10 who have not taken part so far)
Men's Marathon - 3 Athletes
Men's 50km Walk - 1 Athlete 
Womens 800m - 1 - Tintu Luka 
Womens 20KM Walk - 2 Athletes

Golf - The women's event has not started yet and we have Aditi Ashok in it. 

So out of the 118 who went to the games there are only 29 left in the fray. Biggest disappointment has been Shooting, Boxing and Archery. Badminton and Wrestling are the only medal hopes for us now. 

India at Rio - August 15th summary

Badminton - Had very good results in both men and women. Srikanth defeated Jano Jorgensen in straight games and Sindhu defeated Tai tzu ying in straight games. Lin Dan and Wang Yihan next up. 

Athletics : Renjith Maheswary did his usual at olympics. He finished 30th and failed to qualify for the finals. He had a jump of 17.3 only last month and that jump would have put him in first place :(
Srabani Nanda finished 6th in her heats in women's 200m. 
Lalita Babar the first finalists in the track in 32 years finished 10th in the 3000m steeplechase. Like the Asian games she did a slightly lower time than the heats. She could have finished 7th if she had the same heats time. 
Seema Punia also ended the poor run for the athletes and finished a low 20th and didn't qualify for the finals in the Discuss throw. 

Wrestling : Ravinder Khatri lost his first match and with the person defeating him losing in the semis he didn't get the second chance through repechage. 

Boxing : Vikas was mentioning that if he gets past the quarters he will come back with gold medal. That didn't happen as the Uzbek boxer was just too strong and defeated Vikas in a pretty one-sided event. With this we end up boxing also with no medals. 

There were 3 sports where we were expecting good haul of medals - boxing, shooting and wrestling. With us drawing a blank in boxing and shooting our only hope is wrestling now. 

India at Rio - what to look forward today - August 15th

Can India win its first medal on its independence day?  Going to be very difficult.  

Badminton : Srikanth faces 5th ranked Jan Jorgensen in the pre-quarters. Sindhu faces 8th ranked Tai tzu ying. It will be tough matches for both. Srikanth plays at 5.30pm ist and Sindhu at 2am IST. 

Athletics : Renjith maheswary is in the triple jump qualifiers.  He has been a huge disappointment at the Olympic stage all his career. He usually does something spectacular to qualify and then fades in the big stage. This time also he has qualified with the third best jump in the world this year. I hope he does well at the big stage to get to the finals. 

Then there is the ever smiling Srabani Nanda in womens 200m heat 5. She has a clear aim of getting a PB, hope she achieves that - no hope for progressing

Then we have the first finalist in 32 years in the tracks in Lalita Babar, who is in the finals of 3000m steeplechase. She smashed the national record in the heats, hope she betters that time today. Praying for a top 5 finish.  In asian games she got a PB in heats and in the finals didn't meet that time to settle for the Bronze,  hope she doesn't do that again. 

Seema Punia is in the discuss qualifiers group B. She has a chance of making it to the finals. 

Triple jump starts at 6pm IST

Womens 200m heat 5 - 6.24pm ist

Steeplechase 7.45pm ist

Discuss starts at 5am ist

Wrestling : With the shooting team coming empty handed it is wrestling that should give us some medals. Wrestling starts today. Ravinder KhatrI 85kg Greco roman. Greco roman has not been our strong area, lets see what Ravi does today.  Starts at 6.45pm IST

Boxing : Vikas Krishan the only boxer left in fray faces Bektemir Melikuziev in the quarter finals. Bektemir is very strong and defeated Vikas last year in the asian championship finals easily.  Win today wilk ensure a medal for Vikas but that is going to be very difficult.  At 3.15am ist

India at Rio - August 14th summary

Golf : Anirban and Chawrasia are in the bottom 10 of the competition

Badminton : I was not expecting medals but didn't expect Saina to get knocked out in group stage - there are reports that she had knee injury. She lost to 66th ranked Ukranian. Sindhu was shacky in the first game but won her match in 3 games. Srikanth won in straight games. Srikanth will face 5th ranked Jan Jorgensen and Sindhu 8th ranked Tai tzu ying. Going to be very difficult for both.

Shooting : Chain did very well in the prone position but not so well in the other 2 positions to finish 23rd. Gagan was average in all 3 positions to finish 29th. Th3 first time since 2004 our shooting team are returning without a medal.

Hockey : India was fully on defence as Belgium had more than 75% of the possession.  I was happy that we went 1-0 at half time.  However, once the equaliser came knew it was only a matter of time before Belgium go into the lead, which they did and won the match 3-1. Belgium are playing really well won't be surprised if they go all the way.

Athletics : OP Jaisha and Kavitha Raut finished 89th and 120th in the womens marathon.

Tennis : Sania and Bopanna lost in straight sets to the Czech pair and missed out on the medal.

Boxing : Knew it would be a tough match for Manoj Kumar but he tried his best. He lost to the Uzbek boxer. Vikas is the only one left.

Gymnastics : Who would have thought we will have a finalist in Gymastics.  In my morning post I had mentioned that I would be very happy if she finishes in top 5, but she went one better to finish 4th. Way to go girl. Dipa Karmakar you should be really proud of what you achieved. 

India at Rio - What to look forward today - August 14th

Golf : Round 4 continues in the men's event which is the last day. Anirban Lahiri and SS Chawrasia are in the fray. We can forget about any medals. Starts at 4pm IST

Badminton : Singles day today with all three - Saina, Sindhu and Srikanth having matches today. All of them should ideally win their matches easily. Saina - 5:25pm IST Sindhu - 7:45PM IST Srikanth - 7:10PM IST

Shooting: Rifle 3 position qualifier is at 5:30. We have Gagan Narang and Chain Singh. Today is the last day for shooting. This is not the main event for both Gagan and Chain. That should free up their mind and help them in performing without any pressure. Let us hope we get at least one medal in shooting. I was personally expecting 3 medals at least in shooting and this performance is a huge let down from our shooters. Even in 2012 Vijay Kumar's main event was the 10m Pistol and he shot without any pressure in the Rapid Fire event and got the silver. Let us hope Gagan or Chain do something similar today. 

Hockey : India take on Belgium in the quarter finals today. Belgium is in top form and finished on top of Group A, the group which had Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain and Spain. Hope their good run ends today against us. - Starts at 9pm IST

Tennis : Sania and Bopanna take on Stepaneck and Hradecka from Czhech Republic for the Bronze medal. From 2000 we have been hoping for a medal in Tennis the doubles or mixed doubles but that has not translated into anything fruitful so far. Lets hope that changes today. Starts 8:30pm IST

Athletics : 
Womens Marathon - OP Jaisha and Kavitha Raut are in the fray. Don't expect anything from them in terms of medals. Starts at 6pm

Boxing : Manoj Kumar takes on the Uzbek Fazlidding Gaib Nazarov. Uzbek boxers are generally very strong. This should be very tough match for Manoj and he lost to Fazliddin last year in the Asian Championships (3-0). Lets hope that result is reversed today. Starts 9:15pm IST

Gymastics : Dipa Karmakar is in the finals. It will be very difficult for her to win any medals. She has to improve her score from qualifiers by at least 0.5 for a medal which is a huge number. There are two parts to the score - Difficulty and Execution. Difficulty she does a 7 which is the prodonova and a 6(they will perform 2 different routines). That will not change as this is what she would have practiced for long time and it is only in the execution that she can get it better but 0.5 will be very difficult. I will be very happy if she gets a top 5 finish. Starts at 11:17PM IST

India at Rio - 13th August Summary

Golf - Anirban's poor run continued on Day 3 and he had a 4 over par score. Chawrasia had improved with a 2 under. However, both are way down in terms of overall performance. Chawrasia - 22nd and Anirban 57th (field of 60 golfers). 

Badminton : Jwala and Ashwini lost their match in second set. The end their campaign at the olympics having lost all their 3 matches. Men's team of Manu and Sumeeth however finished with a win against the 8th ranked team from Japan in straight sets. 

Shooting : Another day of so near yet so far. Gurpreet moved up from 10th the previous day to 7th yesterday but only the top 6 qualify for the finals. Mairaj also improved from 10th to tied 5th (there were 5 of them with the same score). In the shoot off for the 2 spots in the finals he was the first to drop out. Till the shoot out he had very good score of 49 out of 50 yesterday. 

Rowing : Dattu finished a credible 13th and that was the best possible position for him to finish having lost out in the quarter finals. All papers and media are reporting it as 15th not sure why though. 

Hockey : The women's team needed a win to get into the quarters but unfortunately they got thrashed by Argentina, losing 0-5 They finishing their campaign with just 1 draw and was placed last in their group

Tennis : Sania and Rohan lost their semi finals match to Rajeev Ram and Venus Williams in 3 sets. Venus was too good after losing the first set to the Indian pair. 

Athletics : 

The highlight for yesterday was Lalita Babar - She became the second women from India to qualify for the finals in Olympics. She fell down during the race but got up and ran and in the process smashed the National Record by 7 seconds. Way to go. Sudha Singh who had that record earlier finished a 9th in hear and failed to qualify for the finals. 
Nirmla the other Indian in the track yesterday finished 6th in the 400m heat and didn't qualify for the next round. 

India at Rio - What to look forward today - August 13th

Golf : Round 3 continues in the men's event. Anirban Lahiri and SS Chawrasia are in the fray. We can forget about any medals. Starts at 4pm IST

Badminton : Jwala and Ashwini are already out of contention to move forward and finish their Olympics with their last league match against the Thai pair. Sumeeth and Manu are against the 8th ranked Japanese team. In case the win their match they have a possibility of moving into the quarters. Womens at 7:15pm IST and mens at 4:25am IST

Shooting: Skeet - Mairaj Ahmed Khan will continue in the qualification and if he shoots as well as the first two series yesterday he should make it to the semis. 25m Rapid Fire - Gurpreet has to improve his scoring to get to the finals. Both are 10th currently. 
Qualifications Skeet - 6 pm IST and 25m RFP - 5:30pm IST
Semis and Finals - 1:30 am for Skeet and 9pm for 25m RFP - Hope the two qualify

Rowing : Dattu Bhokanlal will be in the lower placing rounds (13-18) - he is already out of medal contention - 6:20PM IST

Hockey : Women's team take on Argentina and if they defeat Argentina they get to the quarters. Hope they make it. 6:30PM IST 

Tennis : Sania and Bopanna take on Venus Williams and Andy Ram. If they win we are assured of a silver or Gold and if they lose they will play for bronze. 11:30 PM IST

Athletics : 
3000m Women Steeplechase : We have Lalita Babar and Sudha Singh in the Heat 2 and 3. It will be good if they can go beyond the heats and I think they can. Starts at 6:50pm IST.
400m Womens : Nirmla is in Heat 1. Don't expect her to go beyond the heats. Starts 7:30pm IST

India at Rio - 12th August Summary

Golf : The poor performance continued on day 2. Chawrasia had a par score yesterday and Anirban had a 2 over. I think we can forget about any medals from Golf (not that I was personally expecting). 

Badminton : Both the doubles team lost their matches as expected. Manu and Sumeeth still have a chance of advancing to the next round but Jwala and Ashwini are out of contention. 

Archery : Atanu Das played beautifully yesterday also but the Korean played even better. He lost out in the pre-quarters. 

Shooting : Gagan Narang continued the so year yet so far in the 50m rifle prone event. He was in the 4 position till the last series and then lost out to finish 13th. Chain Singh finished 36th in the same event. Gurpreet Singh is placed 10th at the end of day 1 in the Rapid Fire event. It continues today. Mairaj Ahmed is also placed 10th at the end of day 1 in the skeet event. He had a very good second series and had a full score of 25. Hope both shoot well today. 

Rowing : Dattu Bhokanlal finished second in the low ranking round and will fight for 13-18 positions now. 

Hockey : Canadian Goalkeeper David Carter was way good yesterday to ensure the match ended in draw. Their defence also was too good. Our problem of giving too many fouls and getting cards continued in this match also. We finished with a draw. We also gave away quite a few penalty corners unlike the match against Germany where we hardly gave any PCs. We had already qualified for the quarters this match was to decide whether we finished 3rd or 4th and with the draw we finished 4th. We will be up against Belgium which finished 1st in the other group. 

Tennis : Positive result with Sania and Bopanna defeating Andy Murray and Heather Watson. 

Boxing : Vikas Krishan as expected did very well to win convincingly against the Turkish Boxer. He is up against Uzbek boxer in the next round, who was brutal in the pre-quarters yesterday against a Australian Boxer. Vikas will find it very difficult in quarters. As everyone says to win a olympic medal you got to beat the best, lets hope Vikas does that. 

Athletics : Sorry to have missed out to the 100 m heats in the to watch list yesterday. We had Dutee Chand in the heat and she finished 7th. 

Vikas Gowda : I was expecting him to get to the finals, but the fact that he was out with injury for most of the season showed in the series of throws he had. He didn't even cross 58M and finished a low 28th. 

Manpreet Kaur : As expected she also didn't make it beyond the qualifiers. She finished 23rd. 

Jinson Johnson : This was a very good run from Jinson to finish 5th in his heat which also had the champion Rudisha in the mix. His time was 25th in the field of 58th and in some of the heats the first place was itself slower than his time. Really good job by Jinson

Long Jump : Ankit Sharma started with two fouls and his third jump was only 7.67 and he finished 23rd and didn't get qualified for the finals

400m : Muhammed Anas finished 6th in his heat and overall his time was 31st

20KM Walking : Gurmeet was supposed to be the strongest of the three but within 1km of the start he was struggling and was DQed within 2km and Ganapathi also was DQed withi 4km. Manish Singh did exceedingly well to finish a credible 13th. He was in the top 10 till 10km and then dropped to 18th and that's where he was end of 18km but he increased his pace to finish 13th. Good Job by Manish Singh. 

Outside of India's performances - Two things stood out

1) Anthony Erwin - 2000 Olympic gold medal winner and got into drugs, attempted suicide. He came back at the age of 35 to win the fastest swimming event. 
2) Joseph Schooling the 21 year old from Singapre beat the superstars Michael Phelps, Chad Le Clos and Lasloh Cseh and good thing was all of them finished together second :)

India at Rio - What to look forward today - August 12th

Today is the first day of Athletics and we have a pretty large contingent. 

Golf : Round 2 continues in the men's event. Anirban Lahiri and SS Chawrasia are in the fray. They have to really up their game to get any chance of medals. Chawrasia has a par score end of day 1 and Anirban is 3 over. Starts at 4pm IST

Badminton : Jwala and Ashwini will have their match against the 11th Ranked Dutch pair. Sumeeth and Manu are against the 4th ranked Chinese team. Both teams will find it tough to win their respective matches against the much higher ranked teams. The next set of singles matches are only on Sunday. Womens at 5:30pm IST and mens at 7:50pm IST

Archery : Atanu Das was phenomenal in the ranking round and preliminary rounds. He is up against the Korean world # 8 Lee Seungyun. Let's hope he shoots as well as the earlier rounds. Starts at 5:43PM IST

Shooting: There are three events in which Indians are in fray. First up is 50m prone (lying on the ground shooting) and we have Gagan Narang and Chain Singh in this event. Qualifiers and finals will both be held today for this event. Men's skeet we have our first Indian to qualify for this event - Mairaj Ahmed Khan. He is currently 10th in the world rankings. This event is held over 2 days and today is the first round of qualifiers. Next is the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol event where we have Gurpreet Singh who is currently ranked 19th in the world. This is the event where we got our Silver in London with Vijay Kumar. This event will be held over two days. After this there is only one more shooting event for the Indians 50m Rifle 3 position (on Sunday). 50m - 5:30pm IST, Skeet : 6PM IST and 25M RFP - 8:45PM IST 

Rowing : Dattu Bhokanlal will be in the lower placing rounds - he is already out of medal contention - 9:20PM IST

Hockey : Men's team take on Canada and Women's team take on Argentina. Men's team should win their match against Canada. 9PM IST 

Tennis : Sania and Bopanna take on Andy Murray and Heather Watson. They will be in medal contention if they win this match - 11:20 PM IST

Boxing : Vikas Krishan is up against Ondel Sipal of Turkey. He should ideally win this match and get into quarters - 3 AM IST

Athletics : 
Vikas Gowda is in Group B Discuss Throw in the qualifiers and he should ideally get into the finals. Starts at 7:25PM IST
Manpreet Kaur is in Group B of Shot Put in the qualifiers. Don't think she will qualify for the finals. Qualifiers starts at 6:35PM IST
Jinson Johnson is in the heat 3 of Mens 800M. It will be very difficult for him to go beyond the heats - His event is at 6:56PM IST
Ganapathi Krishnan of Tamil Nadu, Gurmeet Singh and Manish Singh are in the 20KM Walk event. We had a surprise top 10 finish in London. This starts at 11PM IST
400m Mens - Muhammad Anas is in the Heat 7. Don't expect him to go beyond the heats. This starts at 6:25 am. 
Long Jum - Ankit Sharma is in Group B. Don't think he will get to the finals. This starts at 5:50 AM. 

India at Rio - August 11th Summary

Archery : Deepika Kumari and Bombayla Devi both lost in the pre-quarters. Both archers were shooting very well the previous day but yesterday was not their day. Deepika's opponent was also way too good. With this women's archery is over for India. 

Badminton: As expected the both doubles team lost their respective matches. They were against some top players, womens team faced the # 1 ranked team and men's the #2 team. Sindhu and Saina won their respective matches in straight sets. Srikanth also started off with a win in straight sets. 

Golf : Anirban Lahiri who was talked about as a medal prospect by the media had a low 3 over par and SS Chawrasia had a on par score end of day 1. The leader has a 8 under. Let's see how the Indians far in the coming days. 

Boxing : This was a huge disappointment for me. Shiva Thapa was against a very tough opponent in Ramirez and the Cuban was way too good for Shiva. Shiva was able to land few punches in every round but it was pretty one sided match up. 

Tennis : With Samantha Stosur in the opposition, I thought it would be a tough match for Sania/Bopanna pair. They however won the game in straight sets and are through to quarters. The one advantage of mixed doubles is that it is a field of only 16 teams. One more win will take them into medals contention (there is a bronze medal match up)

Hockey : Mens team lost to the Dutch 2-1. The stupid fouls by Raghu and Sunil was totally unnecessary and the team was down to 9 players for nearly 10 minutes. It was interesting final minutes when India got 5 penalty corners after the with few seconds left and we tried various options but nothing materialized. We are through to the quarters though. The womens team as expected lost to USA 3-0

India at Rio - What to look forward today - August 11

Golf starts today - Anirban Lahri and SS Chawrasia are in the fray.. Some people say Anirban has an outside chance for a medal.. Let us see.. Many of the top Golfers have dropped out because of the Zika scare.. I am not sure if Golf will continue in Olympics next time - what is the point of the top guys don't participate? 

Badminton also starts today - Initial round is all league phase only and not knock outs. We have women's double pair of Jwala and Ashwini, men's double pair of Sumeeth Reddy and Manu Attri, Womens Singles Sindhu and Saina, Mens singles Srikanth all of them will be on show today. Expectation is that the singles players should win their respective matches and doubles will be tough

Boxing my favorite boxer after Akhil Kumar starts today - Shiva Thapa. Shiva was the youngest boxer to represent India at London when he was 18 and that inexperience showed up in his first round loss. Now he is 22 but his opponent today is the Cuban Ramirez who was a Gold Medal winner at London. Generally Cubans are too good in boxing. Let us hope Shiva gets going this time.  

Tennis yesterday's mixed doubles match got pushed to today. Sania and Bopanna take on Samantha Stosur and John Peers. I think it will be a tough match for the Indian pair.. Let us see 

Hockey : We have the men take on the Dutch and the women USA. Men have been playing beautiful hockey and let us hope they come out winning against the Dutch (no last minute goals please). USA is playing very well and I hope we don't lose badly again. 

Archery : Can Bombayla and Deepika go all the way today? If they win the next two matches they both will face each other in semis. Bombayla starts the day against Mexican Valencia (world # 18) and Deepika starts against Tan Ya Ting (world #2). Rankings don't count and it is all about what each of them do in the given day. 

Let us see how the day goes. 

India at Rio - Aug 10th Summary

We had some good results yesterday and some expected bad results and also shocking results..

Good

Manoj Kumar won his first round and through to the round of 16 - Excellent result considering that his opponent was the bronze medalist at London

Deepika Kumari and Bombayla Devi also had excellent results and are through to Round of 16

Average

Sathish Kumar as expected finished 9th in the field of 14.. The gold medal winner lifted 50KG over what Sathish lifted.. But he went beyond his commonwealth gold medal lift which was good

Disppointments

Jitu Rai - Huge disappointment.. He was our best medal hope and I was hoping that he will win 2 medals and he had few very poor shots to miss out of the finals. Prakash Nanjappa also lost out

Hockey - India was thrashed by Australia in womens hockey. we lost 1-6

Avtar Singh - Lost in the first round in Judo

Tennis got rescheduled to today

India's chances at Rio

Rio Olympics begins this week and We have 119 athletes participating in the RIO Olympics. The largest contingents that we have ever sent to Olympics. It is good that we are able to send such a large contingent and I am sure the more we participate the more the chances we get in terms of winning medals at the Games. 

The recent Narsingh Yadav doping controversy and the earlier case between him and Sushil will definitely impact the wrestling contingent. 

Here is the breakdown of the 119 

Archery - we have the 3 member women's team and Atanu Das in men's
Athletics - we have 18 men and 17 women
Badminton - Men 3 and women 4
Boxing 3 Men
Golf - 2 Men and 1 woman
Gymnastics - 1 woman
Judo - 1 man
Rowing - 1 man
Shooting - 9 men and 3 women
Swimming - 1 man and 1 woman
Weightlifting - 1 man and 1 woman
Table Tennis - 2 men and 2 women
Wrestling - 5 men and 3 women
Tennis - 2 men and 2 women
Hockey - 16 men and 16 women

Let us look at each individual sport and what chances we will have

Hockey Team - The men's team did finish second in the champions Trophy recently but after that they did nothing great in the 4 nation's trophy and the test against Spain which were held after that. We have Germany, Netherlands in our group. We should get into the Quarters and from there on its how we play on the given day. Let's hope we make it to the semis. Women's team has qualified for the first time, let's hope they enjoy the stay at the Games. In case they make it till the quarters that should be a good achievement. 

Expectations of medals - 0

Tennis - There is the Men's doubles, Women's doubles and Mixed Doubles. Mixed doubles team of Sania and Rohan might get a chance but I am not betting on it. 

Expectations of medals - 0

Swimming - We are there because of the quota that the country gets to send to send 2 athletes. 

Expectations of medals - 0

Table Tennis - Sharat Kamal, Soumyajit Ghose in men's and Mouma Das, Manik Batra in women's singles event will find it very tough against the other Asian players. 

Expectations of medals - 0

Judo - Avtar Singh is the lone athlete in Judo. He is not a top ranked athlete in his weight category. 

Expectations of medals - 0

Golf - Anirban Lahiri is being talked about highly as a possible medal hope, I am not so sure. Maybe he will have an outside chance as most of the top golfers pulled out due to the Zika Virus. There are Aditi Ashok and Shivsankar Chawrasia who have also qualified. 

Expectations of medals - 0

Athletics - We have 35 athletes (excluding the banned shot putter) who have qualified for the games. This is a pretty large contingent but are we going to get our first Track and Field medal at Rio? Sadly the answer will be a NO. 

However, there can be a few who can go beyond the initial rounds (mind you not win medals)

Women's 4x400 Relay team - I will be very happy if they make it to the finals 
Women Steeplechase - Lalita Babar and Sudha Singh
Dutee Chand (women's 100m) - I really want her to make it to the semis for all the troubles she had to go through 
Men's discuss - Vikas Gowda. He is definitely a top 10 ranked discuss thrower but definitely not a top 3 who can win you a medal
Women's discuss - Seema Punia might make the finals
Marathon, Walking - I will be very happy if Indians finish in the top 20. Last time at London, KT Irfan finished 10th in 20km walk. 
Then there is this guy Renjith Maheswary - I had him in my outside chance list for London but he fouled out. He has the third best jump in the world this year but I don't expect anything from him. 

Expectations of medals - 0

Rowing - We have one athlete, Bhokanlal Dattu, in rowing. We have never won medals at Asian level itself, so don't expect anything. 

Expectations of medals - 0

Badminton - Saina will face Li Xuerui in quarters and that's where her games will end. Sindhu will face Tai Tsu Yin in the pre-quarters and it will be tough for her to go beyond that and if she does she will face Yihan Wang in quarters. Jwala and Ashwini will find it difficult to go beyond the group stage. Srikanth Kidambi will face Lin Dan if he gets to the quarters and he will not go beyond that for sure. Manu Atthri and Sumeet Reddy will also find it difficult to go beyond the group stage

Expectations of medals - 0

Effectively 89 of the 119 athletes do not have any chance of winning medals. Does that mean the other 30 have chances of medals? - not really. It is just that we have chances in the sports that the 30 athletes participate in - Archery, Boxing, Wrestling, Shooting, Gymnastics and weightlifting we have chances of winning medals. Let us look at each of them. 

Archery - From the time of Limba Ram we had some leading archers get to Olympics but get nervous at the Games. Last time we had Deepika who was the world # 1 going into the games but she didn't get anywhere. Let us hope that it doesn't happen this time also. We should at least get 1 medal from Archery if not 2. 

Boxing - Shiva Thapa, Vikas Krishan and Manoj Kumar all have realistic chances of winning a medal. Actually they were in my list for 2012 also. Hope they do well. I expect at least 1 medal in Boxing from Shiva Thapa. 

Wrestling - Yogeshwar, the Phogat Sisters (or cousins) Vinesh and Babita should have a good chance of making it good. Narsingh could have done well if not for the doping scandal. We have generally been doing well in the freestyle with not much success in Greco Roman, I believe that will continue in this Olympics also. Expect at least 2 medals one each in men's and women's section. 

Gymnastics - Dipa has an outside chance of winning a medal if she does well in the Vault. That's her main event. 

Weightlifting - The Commonwealth Gold medalist Satish Kumar and Mira Bhai Chanu in women's might have an outside chance of winning a medal. I will be happy if we get a medal in weightlifting. 

That leaves us with the sport where we have been doing well (against India's standards) since 2004 Olympics - Shooting. It all depends on the day but we have a pretty large contingent and the following people should realistically win us a medel

Jitu Rai - The Golden man. He should come back with 2 medals in both 50m and 10m pistol events. 

Gagan Narang or Bhindra should win a medal in 10m rifle event

Apurvi(10m rifle), Ayonika Paul(10m rifle) and Heena Sidhu(10m pistol) can win a medal in their day. 

Manavjit Singh Sandhu might have an outside chance in Trap event. 

Expectations of medals - 3 (best case - 6) 

Total Medal that I expect - is minimum 8 and max 15. I definitely hope this will be our best Olympics in terms of medals crossing the 6 we had in London.

I will be very Happy if the following happens

1) We cross double digit in terms of medals

2) Win a medal in men's hockey 

First may happen second very difficult. Let's see how much of my predictions come true when the Games ends on 22nd August.