India National Thread

[tirtha22 234]

14 minutes ago, Hazique said:

Only few positives were deepa karmakar, atanu das, datta , sindhu, srikanth, mens doubles pair, women wrestling.

 

not womens wrestling but sakshi malik.. also include dattu bhokanal ... aditi ashok ( not sure ) , Lalita Babbar

[Dolby 735]

Now that Olympics, are almost over, I would like to give my assessment of how Indian fared in both Qualifications and Olympics and future prospects for each sports over the next few days. I will start with Archery. 

 

Archery is a very fickle sport. Korea is in a league of their own and after that, a number of nations can win on any given day. India is part of that group of nations but sadly, we never seem to win on the given day. Men's team not even qualifying for Olympics was a big disappointment. Archers started well in qualifications but second half was simply disastrous. Though, we managed to get decent draws inspite of bad qualifications (once again showing the fickle nature of Archery), we couldn't capitalise on it. There is immense talent in the team but somehow they always falter at Multi Sports Games. 

 

Before London Games, our team was in great form and we were among favourites for medal but team suffered a complete meltdown. Archery Association (among the best run Sports Federation in India, according to me) did take corrective measures after that. They have a strict and transparent selection policy. When Deepika was out of form in 2014, even she was dropped from the team. Learning from London, this time, our team was sent quite early to Rio to get acclimatised to conditions better. There were mental conditioning camps for the team as well.  Our team did perform better compared to London. They looked much more composed. Sadly, that was not enough and we failed to reach later stages of competition once again. 

 

Going forward, I honestly don't know what to expect. We have a decent pool of young archers who are doing well in international events. We do need special training for windy conditions. Also, we need more archers to push Deepika. Though Korea won both individual events, the eventual gold medal winners were not the favourites before the games. Korea is so good because all three of their participants are the top level. In India, only Deepika is at that level. Atanu has shown great promise in this Olympics and hopefully, he will also reach the top level soon. But, if we want a medal in Tokyo, we need 6 archers at that level. 

 

[Kiruphagaran 1]

I feel that this disastrous show is good for us in the long run. With social media attention and more people following sports, government should wake up.

Badminton is taken care of with gopi at helm and newly appointed doubles coach will produce results. In mens we have lot of players coming up,  but women worries me as there is no talent after sindhu and saina.

Womens wrestling seems tobe in good direction and mens we have amit kumar and punia.

Womens boxing will have a new Mary Kom in nikhat zareen. She is supported by OGQ and I expect a lot from this teenager. Mary kom boxing foundation will need some time to produce talents. But boxing federation should clear its mess.

Hockey is under good leadership and coach if oltmans stays till tokoyo 2020.

Archery I dont know but they should move over and I saw somewere that the korean coach saying the technique of our girls is not that good. If it is so then they should seriously look into it.

Shooting: Hope gagan stays till next olympics and jitu shoulders the responsibility. We have got some good young talent.

 

[Dolby 735]

Next in my list is Badminton: 

 

Qualification was more or less expected. Apart from Mixed Doubles, we had participation in other 4 events. In WS, we had the maximum allowed participation. Kashyap, Jayaram and Prannoy were close to qualifying as well. I feel that if Kashyap had been fit, he would have qualified alongside Srikanth. So, no regrets in qualifications. 

 

Going into Olympics, none of Srikanth, Saina and Sindhu were in great form. Srikanth had a horrible second half in 2015 and Saina's ranking also had dropped significantly. Sindhu also could not improve her ranking enough to get a top 8 seeding. So, as expected, we had to face higher opponents earlier (Jorgensen and Tai in Rd of 16). Doubles team are good enough to qualify but are nowhere near top 8, so once again expectations weren't that high. 

 

Attri/Reddy had the worst possible draw, their 3 group opponents were all ranked in top 10. They had absolutely no chance of qualifying to next stage. They did well in winning a match against Japanese pair. 

 

Gutta/Ponappa had a decent draw. They could have qualified for the next stage if they won against the Dutch pair. But, it was a close match-up and they lost in 3 games. Was a bit disappointed in loss against Thai pair. Though match was inconsequential, ending the Olympics with a win would have been better. 

 

Saina got injured in the run up to the Olympics. As many have pointed out, maybe it was Karma for the bronze she won in London.  She is a fighter and will come back strongly. Was really sad to see the way her commitment was questioned in media after her loss to Ukrainian. Also, sad was the way, people were making fun of her after Sindhu's medal.  

 

Srikanth did well to defeat Jorgensen in Rd of 16. He gave a tough fight to Lin Dan in Quarters. For second Olympics, we have lost in Quarter to a legend. Srikanth is a form player, and hopefully, this performance will give him enough confidence and he will once again reach the level he was in late 2014-early 2015.

 

Sindhu has nerves of steel. Playing her first Olympics, she reached finals. She has now won 2 Bronze and 1 Silver in World Championships and Olympics in last 4 years. Her defence was her weakest link but here she showed immense improvement in defence. Defeating in form Tai, Yihan and Okuhara in straight sets requires great physical and mental strength. In the final, Sindhu played great badminton but Marin was simply better. Sindhu also became the first Indian women to win a Silver. 

 

This success we are having in Badminton is result of hard work put in by 3 generations: Prakash Padukone, Gopichand and current crop of players. Padukone and Gopichand academies are doing an excellent work. We have the next batch of youngsters ready to push the current players. Gopichand never had any competition at national level. Aparna Popat was way better than others in WS for a long time. Now, that is not the case. This depth will ensure that we continue to improve in Badminton. 

 

I have high hopes from Badminton in Tokyo. Hopefully, we will also improve in Doubles by that time and will have a large team and multiple medals. 

[Govind 9]

I dont want Wrestling also get ruined like Boxing in India.. After seeing what happen to Narsing Yadav..
 

Say to see lose of Dutt in first Half ... Hope Sakshi medal keeps the things high

[Madhusudhan 12]

creditable performance by indians in marathon...... 2 guys finished 25th and 26th out of 150 odd

[gubchandrolai 17]

Great run by Gopi and Kheta Ram.

Finished 25th and 26th and they are 2nd and 3rd best Asians at this moment. 

Edited August 21, 2016 by gubchandrolai

[Madhusudhan 12]

With Olympics officially over for india now i also would like to give assessment/review of India performance... may be every one would like to

Can't we all assess/review indian performance in some common format which would be very easy to follow...for example in the order of

 

1.Event wise review

2.Best performance

3.Worst performance

4.Surprising performance

5.Overall verdict on Indian performance (Very good/Good/Bad/Worst/Disaster...)

6.Suggestions

 

The above format is just an example  

[gubchandrolai 17]

Gopi has an amazing story.

 

I read somewhere he was brought in by the Army to give a competition to Rawat in Mumbai Marathon so that the Armyman Rawat can qualify.

 

He was instructed to pace the first 30km so that Rawat gets the run and motivation for the Olympic Qualification timming.

 

However Gopi found the distance comfortable and pushed forward 12 more km to surprise everybody and finished just after Rawat and surprisingly under the OQT.

[tirtha22 234]

1 hour ago, gubchandrolai said:

Gopi has an amazing story.

 

I read somewhere he was brought in by the Army to give a competition to Rawat in Mumbai Marathon so that the Armyman Rawat can qualify.

 

He was instructed to pace the first 30km so that Rawat gets the run and motivation for the Olympic Qualification timming.

 

However Gopi found the distance comfortable and pushed forward 12 more km to surprise everybody and finished just after Rawat and surprisingly under the OQT.

Another Rawat who represented India in the 10 km walk event in Rio also has a similar story. Manish Singh Rawat is a part time waiter in Uttarakhand  and wakes up at 4 am every morning, two hours ahead of his colleagues and starts his training. Rawat, who was at a time, working as a housemaid, tried to get a job in the Police in 2010 through sports quota, which could have given him a monthly salary of Rs 10,000 and get his events sponsored. Unfortunately, he was not given the offer. He does several part time jobs like acting as a guide for tourists to support his family.

Rawat earned his berth at the IAAF walking challenge in April by leaving behind 300 competitors. In the finals, Manish walked 20km distance with a timing of 1:21:21, where he beat four former world champions, three Asian champions, two European champions and two Olympic medallists.