nitinsanker

awesome achievement and some of them were broken twice - Like 110 mh, 200men, 3000sc women which was a further indication of the strech put in by indian athletes.... I expect a few more to be broken at rio !!!!! ...to make 2016 a year to remember

Performances which stood out this season for me ( in comparison to 2012 olympics ) .................. If our atheletes did their PB which they have achieved in the last one year where would they be placed in the 2012 olympics ranking Ankit had done 8.19 in the long ................... He would have got a SILVER medal Renjith had done 17.30 in the triple .............He would have stood 5th Indrajeet had done 20.7 in the shot ............ He would have stood 8th Vikas had done 65.75 in the discus .............He would have stood 7th 4*400men had done 3.00.91 ...................... They would have stood 6th 4*400women had done 3.27.88...................They would have stood 8th sudha had done 9.26.00 in the 3000m......she would have finished 10th, and lalitha 9.27.00 would be 11th devender with 1:20;21 in the 20 km walk would have been 10th and gurwinder with 1:20:29 would have also been 10th so we would have had 10 people in the top 10 or so ..................... Duttee 11.22 would have got into the semis in the 100m women and also dharambir with 20.45 would have been enough to reach the semis in the 200m and also 23.07 to have got srabani in the 200m semis for women, tintu with 1:59.19 would be int he semis as well ........................also 4 people in the semis so these are world class scores if the Indian athletes further improve on them and peak at the right time ......any thing can happen ...,,,

I am really celebrating a renaissance in Indian Athletics, This year we have really broken four myths which plagues Indian athletics 1. Very few world class athletes and the rest were no-hopers - There was a very small group of elite athletes ...for example in 2012 - there were Krishna Poonia , Vikas gowda , seema , renjith and one or two others ...................... Now there is a huge group of atheletes - it is not just the 36 who made it , there were another at least 15 more who missed narrowly - Neena , Prajusha, Sidhanth, 2-3 javelin throwers, krishna, Jithin , 4*100 women , prem , durgesh , lakshmanan, the rest of the 400 meters athletes for the 400m 2. We are good at just a few events - Middle distance and throws, jumps and the womens 4*400 - This year we have shown we are good at sprints , some of the mens relays , long distance , walks and so on ............. in every event we have had olympic qualifiers or close to olympic qualification , the only events we did not have good players - was the combinations( deca and hepta ) and the pole vaults 3. Atheletes who train abroad do well - Nirmala , Dhrambir , Jinson , Manpreet really have shown otherwise that you can train in India and still do well 4. No world class performances - we have world class performances in 3000w Steeple , Discus men and women , mens 4*400, womens 4*400 , ankit in the long , renjith in the triple, indrajeet in the mens shot, manpreet in the womens shot, the mens 20km walk all are world class ........... so really we have many world class performances this time around ................. can a medal be too far away ................

Has the number of universality positions increased ? ...... or is 900 quota limit lower than it was ? ............. I think the number of B seats left were only 30 .....which means that the majority of positions went to the big A level nations and then universality positions majority of whom would be not meeting the B standard

Really impressive Hungarian squad

Not impossible ............but needs the 4*100 squad to do well ..they have the potential easily ..............which will give 3 more , to reach 200 we will need 2 individual qualification Neena was close today ( unfortunately has no chance tomorrow as per the schedule ) , we have jinson in 800, jithin in the 400mh, triple jumpers , Javelin throwers , ( it is a pity sidhanth has no chance tomorrow ) , the 400 m women and 400m men is there tomorrow but because of the 4*400 qualifications it may not add quota places .................... so very difficult but not impossible but Vivek 120 is only a number................ the quality of players is very important .....the 4*400 m run was awesome and could take them to a final in the atheletics ...................which was well beyond my expectations .....................let us hope for something similar from the 4*100 women - they have the potential to do very well and so has neeraj chopra - I am hoping for something outstanding from them

Awesome run by the mens 4*400 team .....................straight to Rio !!!................ and a great national record to Boot beating the old record by 2 whole seconds

I really feel South Asia is the black hole of olympic sports .......look at the statistics they are shocking Pakistan - 200 million population - 1 official quota + 2 tripartite Bangladesh - 168 million - None as of now + 2 tripartite Burma - 56 million - 1 official quota + 0 tripartite Afghanistan - 32 million - No official quota + 1 tripartite Nepal - 31 million - No official quota + 3 tripartite Bhutan ( smallest ) - 0.7 million - No official + 1 tripartite Srilanka ( most respectable ) - 21 million - 4 official + 5 tripartite If I leave out Srilanka and India out of it ................here you have a region of close to 470 million population and 2 official quotas - 1 shooter and 1 judoka ( to put in perspective the entire population of south america is just 370 million or so Really this is the pits ....I think by comparison of course we at India are doing reasonably well ....105 quotas ( 2 can be considered unearned in part - swimming ) hoping to close at 115-120 .............

I really feel South Asia is the black hole of olympic sports .......look at the statistics they are shocking Pakistan - 200 million population - 1 official quota + 2 tripartite Bangladesh - 168 million - None as of now + 2 tripartite Burma - 56 million - 1 official quota + 0 tripartite Afghanistan - 32 million - No official quota + 1 tripartite Nepal - 31 million - No official quota + 3 tripartite Bhutan ( smallest ) - 0.7 million - No official + 1 tripartite Srilanka ( most respectable ) - 21 million - 4 official + 5 tripartite If I leave out Srilanka and India out of it ................here you have a region of close to 470 million population and 2 official quotas - 1 shooter and 1 judoka ( to put in perspective the entire population of south america is just 370 million or so Really this is the pits ....I think by comparison of course we at India are doing reasonably well ....105 quotas ( 2 can be considered unearned in part - swimming ) hoping to close at 115-120 ..............

oh crap ...thats a pity

Olympic club of Qatar ..............Logo - Hire an Expat to do everything- Hungarian Handbal Players, Nigerian, Morocon, sudanese, Egyptian , kenyan atheletes ( Barring the Barsim bros ) , Chinese TT players , Brazilian Volleyball players and now german boxing ...wow !!! By the way Thulasi Tharumalingam sounds more Indian / Malaysian then german ...... I think out of the 35 member squad ..they have a couple of skeet shooters and the great Barsim....the rider and possibly the horse in equistrian

Well Strictly speaking there is no championship called the world championship in Field hockey ...there is a world cup and then there is a world league and then there is a champions trophy ...............So I had taken the last major global event as the world hockey league where we had got a bronze ............But if I took the champions trophy we had got a silver ........... so i would still say that we could be considered an equivalent of a bronze .........

Well Strictly speaking there is no championship called the world championship in hockey ...there is a world cup and then there is a world league and then there is a champions trophy .................as we have a silver in the champions Trophy , a bronze in the world league and a 9th in the world cup to average it out to a bronze is reasonable ?

Personally I did not feel Sajan is not a bad choice as he is just 22 whereas Sandeep is 27 and possibly he may not be able to improve, while Sajan still may improve ( peak age is around 25 ) which may put him in the target range for Tokyo and definitely for the next asian games ....... The point difference between them was slight but they need to have a clear selection policy As far as London quite possible because it is quite incomprehensible for FINA to have such weird rule

I agree ...if you go strictly by the last world championships in each sport it looks like this Shooting - 1 silver Wrestling - 1 bronze Boxing - 1 bronze Hockey - 1 bronze Badminton - 1 Silver Archery - 1 silver Tennis - difficult to estimate - Mixed Doubles perf - But possible bronze based on Grand slam average so comes to 7 medals............................... But couple of things may help us go ahead .....Some serious money comes in just before the olympics which does not happen before the world championship ....so expect some extra improvement especially in shooting , Our best wrestler did not participate in the world championship so had he done I could legitimately expect another medal ......but on the down side archery and tennis have never done well for us so they may come down ................. Upper side 10 .....lower side 4 ................ Best bet 7

My list - I think between 4- 10 medals is realistic as non of them are really favorites or even most likely medallists barring Jitu Rais two events where he is ranked 2 and 3 respectively Top 20 Medal chances for India( this is in no order ) 1. 50m Prone - Gagan Narang - Medalllist last year in one of the Fort benning world cups 2015 , has the big occasion temperament 2. 10m Air rifle(m) - Abhinav Bindra - Big occasion shooter , is showing signs of a return to form ( in baku world cup was leading finals after 2 rounds by a big margin ), a gold medallist has the temperament to shoot ( only a fool would say that Abhinav cannot medal in Rio..... In case any of you want to dispute that ) 3. 10m Air Pistol(m) - Jitu Rai - Bronze medal at the chongwon world cup - consistently has been in finals - One of Indias top hopes 4. 50m Air Pistol(m)- Jitu Rai - Currently Ranked world number 2 in this event , silver at the world championships - a class act 5. Skeet(m) - Mairaj - The only Indian who won a medal at the Rio World cup this year - currently ranked world no 4 ( never thought we would have a skeet prospect ) 6. 10m Air rifle(w) - Apurvi - broke the world record last year , last years world cup final silver medal 7. Womens Badminton - Sania Nehwal - world championship silver medallist , in good form 8. Mens Hockey Team - Last two major tournaments - Silver and Bronze 9. Tennis Mixed Doubles - With Sania in the team we have one of the best women's players with a very small field just two good matches and you are in with a medal 10.Boxing - Shiva - A medal at the world championship ....... 11. Boxing - Vikas - Indias finest boxer reached quarters of the world championship , is a world championship medallist 12. Wrestling - Narsingh - The only indian till now to win the olympic quota at the world championship , shows his class 13. Wrestling - Yogi- Missed the world championship due to injury but his form at the asian qualifiers was fearsome 14. Wrestling - Vignesh - Awesome form at the last qualifiers , again her form was so good 15. Archery womens team - Current world championship silver medal , has consistently been medal-ling 16. Archery womens individual - Deepika is a true championship so many medals , was immature last time in her first olympics , now is more mature 17. 10m air pistol ( w) - Heena Sidhu has been ranked world number one in 2014 was in fine form in the run up to the asian qualifiers 18. Womens weightlifiting - Mirabhai Chanu in the 48 Kgs has lifted 192 which puts her in the elite list of top 3-4 weightlifters, she has been consistenly improving in the last few months and I feel will reach the level of 194 or so at Rio ..that should fetch her a medal with some luck 19. Womens Vault - The fast improving Dipa Kramakar came 5th at the world championship , she has been getting a lot of support and will improve further , a medal prospect in gymnastics 20. Womens Badminton - PV sindhu - two times world championship bronze medallist is definately a prospect

Our Sports minister Sonowal has talked about the 10 medals "From whatever inputs I have got from the various sports federations, there is a strong chance of India bagging more than 10 medals in Rio. The preparations are going on in full swing and the government have put forward every effort to ensure that the medal tally goes up," Sonowal" But he has already been replaced before Rio ................................

Why did they not select sandeep as per the points chart he seemed a little above Sajan , though sajan is not a bad choice and was second

........... I do not think Basant Rana has any event ?.....MR Poovamma is not an additional quota she is already part of the 4*400 squad .................. so we will have to hope from the others at the Indian grand prix which are Men 100m - Amiya * 2 attempts 200m - dharambir 400m - Arokia 5000m - Lakshmanan Shotput - Tejinderpal , Om prakash * 2 attempts Discus - Kirpal ( seems unlikely though he is a good 4 meters behind ) Long Jump - Prem * 2 attempts Triple - Renjith , Arpinder ( he seems to be in poor form but I am including him as his PB is so good ) * 2 attempts Javelin - Neeraj , Rajinder * 2 attempts 4*400m - Two attempts 400mh - Durgesh , Jithin 110mh - Sidhanth *2 attempts Women 4*100w - 2attempts 5000m - Jaisha and Suriya Javelin - Annu and Suman - 2 attempts Triple - Mayookha * 2 attempts Long Jump - Neena and Prajusha * 2 attempts womens shot - Manpreet Jr The best hopes are the two relay teams mens 4*400 and womens 4*100 as they have only recently hit their desired mark they just need to make the same mark again , possibly sidhanth as he needs just one good run and he beat the mark in a slightly wind aided effort ( if you noted the Indian Atheletic Federation have repeated the most hopeful events ( womens triple and long ,mens shot , javelin. 110mh, 100m ) where they feel the Indian atheletes have a good chance ......but we may have some unknown player making like nirmala showed in the interstate

despite many walkovers given........5 men, 1 MD, 1WD, 1 womens singles in round of 16 at the US open badminton for india

any atheletics till the indian grand prix ...................... Events till the 11th - I am just trying to keep track Athletics Indian Grand prix - 10 and 11th Belgium - 9th ( thanks rohan ) Badminton US open - lots of indian action Tennis Wimbledon Swimming I think there was some event @Prashanth i think you had mentioned something guys do fill in the gaps @tirtha22 @rohan sharma @gvaisakh @Sanjib @sasidhar @RickygoestoRio @ritesh@Partha_SG@Smit @Prakash

the double ihab ?

just a quick question is july 11th the final day by which time the final teams would be finalised

Well in badminton we have saina who was a silver medalist at the world championship last year and some hopes in boxing and wrestling , mixed doubles in tennis we have some hopes ( sania has been dominating womens doubles with martina ) and we have good mens doubles tennis player , archery our womens team won a silver at the world championships......also in mens hockey finally we seem to have our act together though a medal may be tough , but unlike you guys we do not have a huge depth in one sport but tend to be spread in a large number of sports ................... but colombia and India do have one thing in common that we started doing well in the last olympics and this time have further improved our numbers ( last time we got 6 medals and so I think did you guys ) ........and this time both hope to improve so