Dolby

Gymnastics: 4 years back, I didn't think I would see an Indian gymnast qualify for Olympics in the near future. 2 years back, I hadn't heard of Dipa Karmakar. This year, we started our Independence day by cheering her. She came agonisingly close to an Olympic medal and won a billion hearts. Road ahead for her is tough. Now, there are expectations. There are also indications that difficulty level of Produnova vault would be reduced. But, I am sure that Dipa and Nandi sir will overcome these challenges. Rakesh Patra came close to qualifying. He was R1 for test event. So, with more focus, hopefully, we would have a male gymnast at Tokyo as well. As far as Nandi sir's claim (dream?) of 6 gymnasts for Tokyo.

Golf: Don't follow the sport enough to make a comment. But would still like to laud the effort of Aditi Ashok. I didn't expect her to be so close to top after 2 rounds.

Next Field Hockey: Both teams qualified for Olympics. Going into Olympics, my expectations (hope) from Women's team was win the match against Japan. They drew that match. So, 50-50. There is no doubt that Hockey India should have handled the Ritu Rani situation better. We are still a long way from the top level but this Olympics should have given good exposure to the team. For the Men's team, I knew winning a medal was hard but heart was sure that we would break the drought. We played good hockey. Our fitness levels have improved a lot. We are no longer afraid against top teams and have victories against almost all the top teams in the last 2 years. But even with these many positives (may be because of them) this Olympics was one of heartbreak. The dying second draw against Germany was devastating. Full marks to the team for bouncing back with a win against Argentina. One does wonder what would have happened if we had managed to defeat Canada in the last league game and faced Spain in QF instead Belgium. We need to work on our defence. There are times when we simply fail to clear the ball and allow opposition insane amount of possession, especially if we are leading in the 4th quarter. Also, we need to reduce our dependence on PC for goals. Though Narinder Batra runs Hockey India like his personal fiefdom, he does take care of the players. Level of hockey in HIL is good and a large number of top foreign players also take part in it. It is a good learning experience for our youngsters. If Batra can control himself and not fire Oltmans for 4 years, I am hopeful, we can win a medal at Tokyo. I would also like to thank FIH and Leandro Negre for the way they have supported Indian hockey in the recent past. They worked with HI even when Indian government was giving affidavits in courts that it had no problem if there were 2 different Hockey federations representing India. They allocated a large number of events to India. India would have struggled to qualify for so many events but took part in them due to being hosts. (FIH did that because of the revenue potential from India). Taking part in those tournaments helped us a lot.

Add 4 teams to make it an even 16. Difference in quota could be split between additional quotas and reducing individual quotas. Also, if IOC agrees, I would like to see Compound events in Olympics as well. It is well developed and would bring more diversity to Archery. Bit problematic. At present, there are 38 quota places for MS and WS. Plus, we have extra quota places due to players qualifying in 2 events. To have uniform groups of 4 and second place athlete also advancing would mean reducing quota to 32 (8 groups of 4). Also, no more reallocation of doubles quotas. A large number of nations would miss out if we do that. Among all the team sports, Hockey is the most diverse sport. Teams from 4 continents (except Africa) are capable of winning medals. Remove the sport. Olympics is no place for U-23 tournament.

PV Sindhu, Sakshi Malik, Dipa Karmakar and Jitu Rai all have been conferred with this year's Khel Ratna Award.

In Boxing, there is not much to write. Only 3 boxers qualifying for Olympics was a big step back from London. Thapa had a nightmare draw, eventual gold medal winner in Round 1. We are without a National Federation for quite some time now. First step on the path to recovery would be having a federation. We were on the right track till London, so have hopes that if we get our house in order, situation will improve. But, even if we do all the right things, there is no certainty that results will come. AIBA is a mafia. India was never on their radar and hence, our boxers could be discriminated against easily. Sarita's outcry at Asian Games would not have helped. It would also be interesting to see if AIBA has the balls to take on powerful Irish federation or they will simply ignore the way Conlan lambasted them. And if they do take action against them, I am expecting a strong reaction from Irish team. Hopefully, something positive would come out from it. I think Sarita and Mary would both retire now. I feel for Sarita. She had to move 2 weight classes to accommodate Mary at 52kg and got a horrible draw in 2012. She was robbed in Incheon. After that, she was never going to qualify for Olympics. She was too emotionally drained. Also, AIBA would never have allowed her to win or even qualify for Olympics after that. For Tokyo, I have no hopes from Boxing. There are too many uncertainties.

Continuing my assessment, next is Athletics. We qualified record number of athletes. Also, a large number of National records were broken in the process. But, somehow I don't feel excited about them. In fact, improvements shown by some is suspicious. AFI re-appointing a doping tainted coach for the women's 4x400 relay team also increases my fears. In the Olympics, except Lalita Babar, Manish Rawat, T Gopi and Kheta Ram nobody came even close to their Personal Bests. I know, that a large number of them had already pushed themselves to the limit to qualify for Olympics and hence, were not in peak form, so it should have been expected, but still it was sad to see. I expected more from Vikas Gowda and Seema Antil. They are experienced and had qualified fairly early, so they should have done better but now it is clear that they are past their prime. As for Tintu Luka, we need to accept that she is not going to come even close to the level that we had hoped for. She will hover around 2 minute mark. Occasionally drop below 2 minute mark and win medals but thats it. I think, she should give 400m a try. Maybe it will be a better fit. Our relay teams promised much but failed to deliver. After the result in 800m, there will be increased attention on hyperandrogenism and hence on Dutee Chand. I hope we support her no matter what the IAAF/CAS decide. We should not fail her like we failed Santhi and Pinky. Since 2014, AFI has followed a policy of not sending 'tourists' to Asian Games and CWG. But, it was interesting to see AFI not selecting Tintu in the initial relay team (they even tried to not select Nirmala and Anas in the team but were not allowed due to IAAF rules) even though she was always going to run the relay. Only reason for doing so is that they wanted to inflate the number of athletes qualified. This is nothing but hypocrisy. If sending 'tourists' to AG and CWG harms our image then let us not send 'tourists' to Olympics as well. If artificially inflating number of athletes is kosher for Olympics, why stop deserving athletes from going to AG and CWG. Also, AFI should seriously think about hiring an intern who can read a 2-3 page qualification document. Not knowing that athletes qualified for 400m HAVE to be selected for relay team is simply unprofessional. Also, they should have known that there are no wild cards in athletics. Still they wasted time in trying for a wild card for Neeraj Chopra. They even sent the useless media on a wild goose chase regarding that. Fans and Neeraj were given a false hope. They even made a fool of themselves by starting a Change.org petition asking for wild card for Neeraj. The way AFI is run is an indicator that having ex-sportspersons as head of National federations is not the "Raam-baan ilaaj" people think it is. For the future, in Neeraj we have a genuinely good athlete. It would be interesting to see how he progresses. Other promising youngsters in the recent past (Durgesh Pal and Navjeet Dhillon) didn't transition to the seniors easily. They are still young and improving so there is still hope. For Tokyo, I would be happy with a large team qualifying early and couple of finals. P.S. The way people are calling Lalita's incredible performance, best by an Indian athlete since PT Usha saddens me a lot. It shows that we have already forgotten Anju Bobby George, Vikas Gowda and Krishna Poonia's performances. Also, I rate JJ Sobha and Soma Biswas's performance at 2004 Olympics quite high.

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.

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.

[hide] Men's Tournament - Knockout Round August 17th - August 21st, 2016 8 Nations, Quarterfinals, Semifinals, Bronze Medal Match and Gold Medal Match Bronze Medal Match Date and Venue Team 1 T1 T2 Team 2 August 21th 2016, h. 09:30, Ginasio do Maracanazinho, Rio de Janeiro United States 3 2 Russia Gold Medal Match Date and Venue Team 1 T1 T2 Team 2 August 21th 2016, h. 13:15, Ginasio do Maracanazinho, Rio de Janeiro Italy 1 3 Brazil [/hide]

Now LCW will win gold to complete Chinese misery.

Exactly. People even demand that Chinese domination sports like Table Tennis should be removed from Olympics. Compared to that, USA gets no heat from other nation's fans.

yes

I asked @MHSN about it and he has clarified. What we missed is that after highest scoring move, next tiebreaking criteria is number of cautions (before last point). Sakshi had been cautioned once and hence was losing at that time.

Top players meet each other in initial rounds in these two events as there are very low number of seeded entries. In Wrestling, IIRC the finalists from the last World Championships were given top 2 seeds and rest all were placed randomly. Even this an improvement as in London, there was no seeds and you could have repeat of WC final in first round itself. There are demands for more seeds and UWW has been trying to popularise its rankings but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. For Boxing, I am not sure if any seeding was used. Also, how would they compare boxers from different formats (amateurs vs ABP vs WSB).

My initial assessment was that even without those last second points, she would have been winner. In case of tie, the wrestler with the highest scoring move wins. In that match, both had 2-2-1 points, so another tie. In which case, last point wins, i.e. Sakshi. I am assuming that commentator assumed that Kyrgyz wrestler had scored 4+1 instead of 2+2+1 as her 2+2 came in succesion, one move of 2 leading to another move of 2. But, it was still 2+2 and not 4. But, there is one thing that is bothering me why would Kyrgyz wrestler challenge. Even if she won challenge, it would have ended 5-5 and Sakshi would have won the match. So, there is a good chance, I am missing something and commentator was right.

Exactly. The way people cheered Sindhu/Dipa is heartening. Star Sports has been telecasting Super Series events regularly (QF onwards), so viewership is bound to increase.

At present, she is tied 9th, rougly midway through Round 3. Medal looks extremely unlikely as she is 4 shots behind medals.

[hide] Women's Tournament - Knockout Round August 16th - August 20th, 2016 8 Nations, Quarterfinals, Semifinals, Bronze Medal Match and Gold Medal Match Bronze Medal Match Date and Venue Team 1 T1 T2 Team 2 August 20th 2016, h. 13:00, Ginasio do Maracanazinho, Rio de Janeiro Netherlands 2 3 United States Gold Medal Match Date and Venue Team 1 T1 T2 Team 2 August 20th 2016, h. 22:15, Ginasio do Maracanazinho, Rio de Janeiro China 2 3 Serbia [/hide]

[hide] Men's Tournament - Knockout Round August 16th - August 20th, 2016 8 Nations, Quarterfinals, Semifinals, Bronze Medal Match and Gold Medal Match Bronze Medal Match Date and Venue Team 1 T1 T2 Team 2 August 20th 2016, h. 13:00, Olympic Aquatics Stadium, Rio de Janeiro Montenegro 2 Italy Gold Medal Match Date and Venue Team 1 T1 T2 Team 2 August 20th 2016, h. 17:50, Olympic Aquatics Stadium, Rio de Janeiro Croatia 2 Serbia [/hide]

Silver for Sindhu.

Carolina Marin has been the best player over the last 2 years. She deserved the Gold medal. What a tournament for PV Sindhu. Her first Olympics, only second major final (She has only 1 final and no titles at Super Series/Super Series Premier) and yet she gave a tough fight to the World Number 1. Nerves of steel.

Lee Chong Wei finally defeats Lin Dan in Olympics.

I won't be surprised if we have an all-Chinese final in MS.

Draw happened before CAS gave its verdict. News channels interpreted it as clearance from CAS. But, as I had feared, CAS sided with WADA and gave Narsingh a 4 year ban. NADA lost credibility and India won't have a participant in 74kg Freestyle because of an emotional decision. WADA was always going to overturn clean chit. CAS was always going to side with WADA.