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