Saturday, August 4, 2012

India at Olympics 2012- Day 7


             What can we say about Day 7. It was an altogether different day than rest of the days. It brought joy in the form of Silver medal but saw the most dependable Saina Nehwal crashing in Semi finals and then it ended with a controversial decision reversal to throw Indian Boxer out of the race.
             The day itself started on a sad note, when Saina Nehwal went down fighting against the world no.1 player from China. It was known that this is the most difficult match and the biggest hindrance in Saina's way. Saina could not give any fight to her opponent and lost in straight sets.
Biggest disappointment for all Indians. After her loss, all Indians apparently had lost any hopes for any medal. Olympics suddenly started appearing less interesting.
             To add to that Gagan Narang could not make it to the finals of 50m rifle prone event. Although Joy Karmarkar made it to the finals, since its not a known name as Narang or Rana, he did not created much ripples. In the end he lost marginally and stood 4th in overall ranking missing the medal closely.
            And then something unexpected happened. Out of nothing, Vijay Kumar won Silver Medal in Men's 25m Rapid Fire Pistol event. None of the Indian has any idea who Vijay Kumar is. And here he won a medal of India. But that is how a person become known to all. After Rajvardhan Rathore, Jaspal Rana, Gagan Narang and brief introduction with Joy Karmarkar, one more shooter is now known to all Indians.
- Vijay Kumar clinches silver in 25m Rapid Fire Pistol at London Olympics
            India got another blow even before they come out of partying mood of winning another medal. India's Hockey team lost their third consecutive match and that too more badly than previous 2 matches. India's hopes to reach next round reduced to zero after loosing to Germany by a huge margin of 5-2. I did not expected  Indian team to win a medal but this poor performance was certainly not expected.
           By the end of the day, in athletics, Poonia managed to get into finals but comparing her performance with others,I doubt we should hope for medal from her. Rest of the performances in athletics were of course disappointing.
          In Tennis, Leander and Sania were trailing  by a set but they were head to head to their opponents and they might be able to come back in the game when the match begins again today.
          The most shocking thing that happened at the end of the day was the reversal of decision in Boxing. Earlier Vikas Krishanan was declared winner in the quarter final match but afterwards when opponent Americans appealed after the bout was over, the decision was reversed and the opponent American was declared winner.
         Apart from India's performance, the highlight of the day was the performance of  Dibaba from Ethiopia who won Women's 10000 meters running event. It was one of the most breathe taking event I have witnessed. In the initial phase, three Japanese runners were controlling the race but as the race progressed  the Ethiopian and Kenyan athletes who till this point were closely following the 3 Japanese slowly started overtaking them one by one. After an interval the three Japanese were at position 8, 10,12 and the lead was in the hands of Kenyan players fighting it out with 2 Ethiopians including Dibaba. As the end started approaching closer these 4 athletes were almost 1 round ahead of their other opponents. But in the end Dibaba from Ethiopia suddenly increased here pace to such an extent that rest of the three runners were left behind by a big margin and Dibaba appeared to be the winner.

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