India National Thread

[Prashanth 176]

Anthony and Sathiyan move into the QF of the Men's Singles in the Bulgarian Open ITTF

Manika Batra loose in the R16 of the women's Singles

Anthony /Sathiyan loose in the SF of the Men's Doubles in the Bulgarian Open

Mouma /Manika loose in the QF of the Women's Doubles

Manika Batra loose in the QF of the U-21 of the Women's  Singles

[Prashanth 176]

Paes looses in the final....

Sania wins back to back tit led after the latest victory in Connecticut open....

[Prashanth 176]

Anthony n Sathiyan looses in the QF of the Bulgarian open...

[shrikant 3]

Sathiyan played very well against robinot Quentin lost 3-4

[Prashanth 176]

Hope Sumit wins the ITF futures title and would become #4 Indian.....Good prospect for India....

[tirtha22 234]

Boxing

 

Bitter about administrative mess which he feels cost him a medal at the Rio Olympics, pugilist Manoj Kumar says Indian boxing is on death bed right now . Manoj appeals for PM's intervention in boxing mess

[kapil857 31]

On 8/26/2016 at 13:11, Dolby said:

Wrestling:

 

Before Olympics, I expected 3-4 Freestyle, 2-3 Women's Freestyle and 0-1 Greco-Roman, so needless to say, I was more than happy with the qualification numbers. 

 

Now, before talking about Olympics, let me talk about the run-up to Olympics. Since his silver at London, Sushil was semi-retired and he had participated in only one competition: Gold in CWG. He also had to move up a weight class to 74 kg to accomodate Yogeshwar Dutt in 67 kg (Yogi had won Bronze in 60kg in London). This created a problem as Narsingh was improving greatly in 74kg. Sushil was injured or decided to skip WC in 2015 and Narsingh won the quota in his absence. Wrestling Federation of India, being star struck, promised Sushil a trial in 74 kg without thinking of consequences and going against its past practice. Now, there was a big time gap between WC and other qualifying tournaments, so no other wrestler had a problem with this promise. I think even Narsingh accepted it as fait accompli. But as other wrestlers started qualifying, there were demands for trials in their categories also. WFI now realised that there was no way it could hold a trial for only Sushil vs Narsingh. If it held that trial, it would have to hold trial for all the other quotas as well. Also, there would be additional hassles regarding who all are eligible for trials. So, it backed out of its promise. This angered Sushil and he went to Sports Ministry and courts to get a trial he was promised. By this time, Narsingh realised that WFI didn't want to hold trials and hence, he obviously also kept on insisting that there was no need for trial. There was nothing wrong in Sushil asking for a trial and Narsingh saying no to a trial. Both were correct in their stands. The problem was WFI. It should have declared a fair policy (trial or no trial) before Olympics qualifications began and stuck to it. If this results in Sushil not getting a trial, so be it. If this results in Yogeshwar losing to an unknown wrestler in trial and losing his Olympic berth, so be it. Stick to one policy during a cycle and modify it as needed for the next cycle. The only good thing to come out of this situation was that Sports Ministry (most likely out of fear of disappointing someone) refused to become a party to this decision. They rightly told that it was the job of WFI to select team and not Sports Ministry. 

 

Now, the other issue: Narsingh's positive test. I am not going to go into whether he took drug knowingly or unknowingly. I don't care. WADA rules are clear. He and his support staff hold full responsibility for everything he eats. I always said that once an athlete tests positive, s/he has to undergo a ban, even if conspiracy is proven. Sadly, a large number of supporters were not aware of this (not their fault). This created a huge public support for Narsingh which prompted even politicians to give support to Narsingh. ADDP got swayed by this popular support and gave an emotional decision in favour of Narsingh. This decision greatly eroded its credibility. Even after this decision by ADDP, WFI/IOA/Sports Ministry had a chance to correct the mistake. Someone should have stepped up and said that WADA will appeal the clean chit. CAS will ban Narsingh. Let us do damage control and send someone else. But alas, nobody wanted to take the unpopular stand and become public enemy. Now, conveniently whole blame can shift to foreign WADA/CAS for harassing an honest Indian and denying us a chance to win Olympic medal, when in reality, both were correct in their stand. 

 

Coming to actual Olympics, I never expected anything from our Greco-Roman wrestlers. Qualifying for Olympics itself was a big step for them. From here, we should aim to regularly win medals at Asian level before thinking of Olympics. 

 

In Men's freestyle, we only had 2 wrestlers: Sandeep and Yogeshwar. Both got bad draws. Sandeep faced Russian in first round and Yogeshwar faced Mongol (who would have won bronze if not for last second foolishness). I didn't watch Sandeep's bout so won't comment on it. Yogeshwar looked tired in his bout. It was sad that after winning 2 medals in London, we failed to win a single bout in Men's Freestyle in Rio. But, I feel that the pre-Olympics acrimony had a large role in it. 

 

The amount of progress we have made in Women's Wrestling is amazing. Sakshi showed great mental and physical strength to win multiple bouts after trailing. Its not easy to win a nation's first medal at an Olympics after so many legends and medal hopefuls have failed.  Vinesh had a good draw and could have won Bronze (I don't think she could have defeated Eri Tosaka) but alas, she got injured and had to withdraw from the tournament.  Phogat sisters have won almost all of our Women's Wrestling medals but failed to win our first Olympic medal. I am sure this will inspire Vinesh to come back stronger and win that elusive Olympic medal for herself, her sisters and her family. 

 

I think both Sushil and Yogeshwar will retire now. So, there will be a great void in our squad going forward. It is upto the youngsters to raise their standard and take Wrestling to the next level. Inspite of the incompetent WFI, I have hope. Sakshi's Bronze will inspire a lot of female wrestlers. We have good coaches (Mahabir Phogat, Satpal Singh and a few more). What we need is more depth in each weight class. Also, we need to work more on the higher weight classes. There are a number of young wrestlers who have shown promise and should improve in future. I hope after retirement, Yogi joins the team in a coaching capacity or opens his own academy. Road ahead is tough but the potential to grow is immense. 

 

I think the person no one talked about in the Sushil vs Narsingh saga was Amit Kumar (2016 Arjuna awardee). Amit was our undisputed best wrestler in the 57 kg category from before London to end of pro wrestling league - won Silver at 2013 world championship dominating everyone except the Iranian Rahimi to who he lost by a point in the final (Rahimi won Bronze at Rio). He also narrowly and controversially lost to Russian Lebedev in 2015 WC when Lebedev was avoided a penalty point in the final seconds due to Amit "refusing to engage".

 

I felt for a long time that he was our best Rio medal hope - ahead of Yogi and Sushil. But unfortunately, 10 days before selection trials for the quota tournaments, he got injured and lost in the trials. He was still slated to compete in the final Olympic qualifier, but Tomar secured the quota in the penultimate tourney.

 

Had WFI done the right thing and held trials (and I at least believe it was just punishment for Sushil missing the pro wrestling league), Rahul Aware vs Sandeep vs Amit would have been on the undercard of Sushil vs Narsingh and Amit would have had a great chance to come through.

 

Seriously hope that WFI changes its stupid policy and decides to have trials - just like shooting and archery - to select the best competitor for the Olympics. Without trials, Atanu Das could have never fought the Korean the way he did.   

[tirtha22 234]

Karate

 

Bhaskar Sen aspires to represent India at the next Olympics. Recently, he won gold and bronze medals in US Open Championship in two categories. It was attended by 2000 competitors across the world.

 

http://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi/du-s-karate-kid-aspires-to-represent-india-at-next-olympics/story-7cPxsxLZLVKRIwCnxs3UBL.html

[Dolby 735]

30 minutes ago, kapil857 said:

 

I think the person no one talked about in the Sushil vs Narsingh saga was Amit Kumar (2016 Arjuna awardee). Amit was our undisputed best wrestler in the 57 kg category from before London to end of pro wrestling league - won Silver at 2013 world championship dominating everyone except the Iranian Rahimi to who he lost by a point in the final (Rahimi won Bronze at Rio). He also narrowly and controversially lost to Russian Lebedev in 2015 WC when Lebedev was avoided a penalty point in the final seconds due to Amit "refusing to engage".

 

I felt for a long time that he was our best Rio medal hope - ahead of Yogi and Sushil. But unfortunately, 10 days before selection trials for the quota tournaments, he got injured and lost in the trials. He was still slated to compete in the final Olympic qualifier, but Tomar secured the quota in the penultimate tourney.

 

Had WFI done the right thing and held trials (and I at least believe it was just punishment for Sushil missing the pro wrestling league), Rahul Aware vs Sandeep vs Amit would have been on the undercard of Sushil vs Narsingh and Amit would have had a great chance to come through.

 

Seriously hope that WFI changes its stupid policy and decides to have trials - just like shooting and archery - to select the best competitor for the Olympics. Without trials, Atanu Das could have never fought the Korean the way he did.   

I have mixed feeling about trials. On one hand, trials are fair and keeps the senior athletes on their toes but on the other hand, I think those who have won medals at World level should be given some leeway compared to others because of experience and mental strength. Hence, I am fine with either policy as long as it is transparent and is followed without exceptions. 

 

Also, in Shooting, we don't have pure trials. Selection policy is a mixture of scores in trials held by NRAI and scores in international tournaments. Abhinav Bindra and other top shooters have been instrumental in inclusion of international tournament scores in selection policy. Their reasoning is that shooting in Olympics/World Cups is very different from shooting in a known range in selection trial. Even for Rio, NRAI didn't have any selection trial. They simply selected all the athletes who won quota except Manavjit Sandhu who was selected in place of Sanjeev Rajput. 

[Prashanth 176]

Sumit Nagal wins the Poland Futures.....