Shooter Abhinav Bindra narrowly missed out on a medal in his Olympic swansong as the men’s hockey team suffered a late 1-2 defeat to Germany in their second match of the pool phase in a disappointing start to India's campaign at the Rio Olympics Games. Adding to the disappointment was archer Laxmirani Majhi, who crashed out in the Round of 32 eliminators. Bindra, India’s sole individual Olympic gold medallist, finished fourth in the final of the men’s 10 metre Air Rifle final at the Olympic Shooting Centre on Monday. Bindra started well, but a couple of wayward shots cost him dearly as he lost in the bronze medal play-off to finish fourth with a total score of 163.8. Monday’s disappointment will see the curtains come down on the glittering career of the 2008 Beijing Olympics gold medallist as he had earlier announced that he will retire after the Rio Olympics. “I think I did my best but a medal was not to be. It was a tough field. Somebody had to finish fourth and I did. Well I think that's the way it is. I gave it all. It was good day a hard day. Could have been better with a medal,” a dejected Bindra, who had finished seventh, said later.
Participating in his fifth Olympics, the 33-year-old got off to a good start with scores of 29.9 and 30.2 in the first two series placing him in the top three. He fell to the fourth spot after a relatively poor 21.1 in the third series with a total score of 81.2. But luck favoured Bindra in the fourth series as he climbed to second with 21.5 as the other shooters in the top four also faltered. However, Bindra seemed to let the pressure get to him as his performance started to go downhill from there. The former World Champion registered progressively poorer scores of 20.8, 20.2 in the next two series. A brilliant series of high 10s saw him go up to second after 11 shots and third after 12. He maintained the position till the 14th shot but a couple of poor shots saw him score 20.1 in what would eventually be his final series and tied at fourth with Ukranian Serhiy Kulish after the 16th shot. In the shoot-off that followed, Bindra could manage only a 10.0 while the Ukranian shot a brilliant 10.5 to move ahead, thus relegating the Indian to the fourth place.
The same event witnessed a heartbreak for Gagan Narang who finished a lowly 23rd in the qualification round. He could only manage 621.7 and crashed out of the event which gave him a bronze medal in the London Games. Trap shooters Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Kynan Chenai also brought bad news by failing to enter the semi-finals after finishing 16th and 19th. Sandhu, in his fourth Olympics, lost out after scoring a cumulative total of 115 while Chenai scored one less to be out of the fray on the second day of qualifications.
However, from the shooting range, Bindra came agonisingly close to another medal Archer Laxmirani bowed out of the women’s individual event, beaten 101-108 by Slovakian Alexandra Longova. The Indian trailed for the very beginning of the contest and lost three of the four rounds, eventually going down 25-27, 26-28, 26-26, 24-27. In hockey, it was a familiar scene where India failed to remain in control in the final moments. Christopher Ruhr deflected the ball from close range in the 60th minute as Germany earned a crucial win in a Pool B match that India deserved a point. Niklas Wellen scored in the 18th minute to give the two-time defending champions the lead before Rupinder Pal Singh (23rd) brought India level with his third goal in two matches.
There was more disappointment in store for Indian fans in the swimming pool as Shivani Kataria and Sajan Prakash were knocked out in the opening rounds of their respective categories, ending India’s campaign in the discipline. Shivani finished a disappointing 41st to miss the race to the quarter-finals after clocking 2:09:30 minutes in the women’s 200m freestyle heats at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium. The 18-year-old completed the first 50 metres in 29.28 seconds before taking 1:01.36 minutes to reach 100m. She then posted a time of 1:34.95 minutes to reach 150m and eventually completed it in 2:09:30 minutes to finish second in the heat. Kathleen Ledecky of the US clocked 1:55:01 minutes to top the list followed by Australia’s Emma Mckeon at the second spot in 1:55:80 minutes and Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom ended third in 1:56:11 minutes.
Meanwhile, in the men’s 200m butterfly event, Prakash clocked 1:59:37 to finish fourth in his heat and 28th overall to bow out of the competition. The Kerala swimmer got off to a poor start as he failed to feature in the top three even after the completion of the first 100 metres. Hungarians Tamas Kenderesi and Laszlo Cseh topped the list clocking 1:54:73 and 1:55:14 minutes respectively while South African Chad Guy Bertrand Le Clos took 1:55:57 minutes to finish third.
Dipa Karmakar lifts India
The only good news is that gymnast Dipa Karmakar scripted history as she became the first Indian to make the cut for the individual vault finals in her debut Olympic Games after finishing eighth in the qualifying round.
She managed to perform her much-appreciated 'Produnova' vault cleanly to secure 14.850 points after two attempts. It was a nervous wait, for she had ended sixth after the third sub-divisions with two more to go. She dropped to 8th eventually when Canadian Shallon Olsen's effort of 14.950 reshuffled the overall standings.
But that was just about enough to secure her a place in the finals scheduled for August 14 as the top-8 made the cut for the medal round. Dipa secured 7.000 on difficulty and 8.1 on execution in her first attempt. Her score for difficulty was a tad lower at 6.000 in the second attempt.
The best result of the day was the Indian women's hockey team drawing 2-2 with Japan in their first Olympics appearance since 1980. Indeed, the return of Indian women's hockey to the Olympics after 36 years ended on a promising note, as the team, ranked 13th in the world, rallied from 0-2 to having conceded two goals in the first half. Goal-less at half-time, India rebounded through Rani Rampal in the 31s minute and Lilima Minz in the 40th for a superb rearguard effort.
India next play Great Britain in their next pool match on Tuesday.
Inglorious exit for Leander-Bopanna
Indian tennis' soap opera ended at the Olympic Tennis Centre. It took all of an hour and 24 minutes. Afterwards, Rohan Bopanna squinted into the sun, and Leander Paes held forth in the only way he can, about the hurt and lack of respect he felt from a certain section of the media.
Of course, he added that the Polish team of Lukasz Kubot and Marcin Matkowski -who dumped them 6-4, 7-6 on Saturday were “hot”.What he didn't say was that before Saturday's first-round match, he and Bopanna had only played together as India's men's doubles team for less than ten days - five to six days in Chandigarh for the Davis Cup last month, according to coach Zeeshan Ali, and just one day here in Rio.
Sania, Prarthana go down
None gave world No.1 Sania Mirza a chance in women's doubles as her partner Prarthana Thombare is ranked a lowly 192nd.The Indians did go down in the first round, but not before giving the experienced Chinese pair of Shuai Zhang and Shuai Peng a tough fight. It took Zhang and Peng 2 hours and 44 minutes to squeeze out a 7-6 (8-6), 5-7, 7-5 victory. With Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna bowing out in the first round of men's doubles, mixed doubles remains India's lone hope in tennis.
Senior partner Sania shouldered the responsibility of carrying the team and even Prarthana, who was the weakest of the four players on court, showed fighting skills. But in the end, it was Prarthana's serve which let the Indian team down.
In the first set, the Indian and Chinese pairs traded three service breaks each as it went to a tie-breaker. It was again a close affair which the Chinese clinched 8-6 to pocket the first set in 70 minutes.
The Indians got an early break in the second set to take a 3-1 lead. The Chinese broke back to make it 5-5. But Sania and Prarthana broke through again to make it one set all. The Chinese drew first blood in the decider to go up 3-1, but Sania struck some trademark forehand winners to get the Indians back on an even keel. The Indians were broken again in the ninth game and the Chinese were serving for the match at 5-4. But the gritty Indians refused to give up and made it 5-5. That breakback was of no avail as Prarthana failed to hold serve. Serving for a place in the second round for a second time, the Chinese made no mistake.
“India always wants gold from me, no matter what I play. At the end of the day, we can just try,” said Sania.“There is no guarantee in sport. We can just try and give our best.”
