sameerph

Vishal should have won his bout against the Moldovan. He left it a little too late and almost equalised the score in the last second. Rohit too had such close loss against the other Moldovan wrestler. Other 2 lost tamely in the QF.

No. They are not same wrestlers of course. I do not what but for most of the Indians on UW site their first name is repeated twice and second name is not mentioned at all. I am sure their second name would be difference and all this confusion would have been avoided if the second name too was mentioned instead of Vijay Vijay for both. It was a super move by 60Kg. Vijay though to pin the Iranian. Do not see such time of moves usually in greco. Let see now if he is strong enough against Turkish wrestler in the final.

Why would they tank ? Does look like they are having a bad world championships. Just 1 quota for Italy so far and only 2 for Germany. US also seems to be underperforming. China, Korea and Russia seem to be the ones with better performance thier Rio olympics level.

We are only at 36 medals, how will go upto 75 ? Do you have sport wise break-up ?

That is an excellent idea, Kapil on Wrestling trials. Only one more issue which WFI has been presenting is that the trials held at a late stage can lead to injuries to wrestlers which will hamper their participation in Olympics. I don't how valid is that argument.

Yes, CAS has given it's verdict on very clear scientific evidence. It says the amount of drug which was found in his sample is so large that it could not have been thru being in the mixed form and has been taken in tablet form. They also say that amount of drug in his second test sample ( which was 10 days later) is higher than the first one. That means there was no one time ingestion but it was a repeated one. To that, Narsingh now says that his drink was contaminated multiple times. If someone is able to do that so many times, then the wrestler and his team too is guilty of negligence. Must say he is losing his credibility by coming up with new claims from time to time.

We as fans also have to be realistic about expectations. There were many on this board who went gaga over we getting our 120 athletes qualified for Olympics and saying that it is a sporting revolution in India and all. Where are all those hiding now ? Gone are the days when we were only satisfied with getting qualifiers. Medals are what it counts. And it was clear even at that stage how the number of 120 was achieved. That was thru getting a lots of qualifiers thru Athletics by questionable means. We as fans should see thru this. Realistically, I was expecting between 4-6 medals for us and we fell far behind that too.

WADA/CAS was never going to let it go if there was no clear evidence that Narsingh's food was spiked. If they would let it pass, tomorrow everyone who gets caught will claim that his food has been spiked. Stupid decision by WFI/NADA has actually hurt us and Narsingh. They should have let Praveen Rana participate.

I think time they have been provided with mental conditioning coach etc. Also they archers have reached Rio almost a month in advance. So, there is little room to complain for them. Missing an arrow altogether and hitting a 5 is unacceptable for a top level archer. It never happens with Koreans. Hope Deepika can correct the same in knock outs. But, as of now Atanu Das looks the best medal prospect for me in archery.

Brilliant stuff from Atanu. Perhaps, he should screwed up a little in the end and dropped to 6th. He would have avoided any Korean till final in that case.

We all know by now that out of those who dope, not everyone gets caught. So, this is no guarantee that they are clean. The doping controls are going to be much stricter in Rio. So, if they have doped there is more likely to be a no show from them as Dolby said to avoid getting caught. Else, their performances will go drastically down from their qualifying timings. I

That is why even performance enhancing drugs will not make Indian athletes go and win a medal at Rio. But, that can certainly make a difference in getting the qualifying time/distance and not getting the same. That is why I call some of those massive improvements suspect.

Let them repeat or better those performances at Rio. Then, I will say that the improvement is real and not due to some controlled circumstances at home.

Nothing related to doping which may happen in athletics will surprise me. The kind of improvement some of the athletes showed in a short period is staggering. Too good to be true or happen in a clean environment.

The point was on what basis are you saying that it was at high level ?

We cannot say this unless we are sure that Sushil camp has contaminated Narsingh sample. If not, Narsingh too should share the blame. But, why are they cancelling the whole camp ? There are other wrestlers who can continue.

Fully agree. Ranking has less of a meaning in shooting. But, still some indicator of current form of the shooters. For instance, on their day even the likes of Apruvi Chandela, Heena Siddhu & Chain Singh can spring a surprise but their current form has been poor which reflects in the rankings. We need some surprises in shooting. I think if we have to exceed our London tally of 6 medals, we need at least 3 medals from shooting.

I was looking at ranking across sports for our players/ teams . I think we can consider those in top 15 to have some chance of getting among medals at Rio, these are the players who are ranked within that range - Shooting Jitu Rai - 3rd in 10M air pistol, 2nd in 50 m pistol Abhinav Bindra - 13th in 10M air rifle Gagan Narang - 11th in 50M rifle 3 positions Mairaj Ahmed Khan - 9th in Skeet There are 2 more shooters - Sanjeev Rajput and Pooja Ghatkar who are among top 10 but are not part of Rio squad. Archery Womens team - 4th Deepika Kumari - 12th Laxmirani Manjhi - 15th Badminton Saina Nahwal -5th PV Sindhu - 10th (9th among those qualified for Rio) K Srikanth - 11th (9th among those qualified for Rio) Tennis Mixed doubles - there are no world rankings for mixed doubles. But if there were, I am sure Rohan-Sania would be among top 10. Boxing Shiva Thapa - 6th Vikas Krishnan - 6th Wrestling Narsingh Yadav - 9th Yogeshwar Dutt - 9th Vinesh - 13th Mens hockey team - 5th ( For a team event, I do not consider top 15 as having a chance of a medal , therefore not including 13th ranked Indian womens team) That makes it a total of 17 events. To this I would add - Tennis mixed doubles- there are no rankings for those but if there were I am sure Rohan-Sania would be in top 10. Gymnastics- Deepa Karmakar was 5th in the last world championships in vault Weighlifitng - Meerabai Chani has the 4th best lift this year. Archery - Atanu Das finished 4th and lost to the world champion Korean in the last world cup Shooting - Gurpreet Singh in rapid fire and 10M pistol, Manavjeet Sandhu /Kynan Chenai in mens trap, Apurvi Chandela/Ayonika Paul in womens 10 M air rifle, Gagan Narang- 10M Air rifle, Heena Siddhu in 10 M air pistol - all have won medals in world level events in last couple of years. So, considering the variability of results in shooting, they can shine on a given day at Rio. I am not including anyone in athletics despite some staggering results by mens relay ream and mens jumpers. So, it would make a total of 28 in starting lists with a shot at a medal. However, uncertain part is most of them would require to improve on their rankings/ current position and over perform to finish among medals. Our athletes did that in London where we had even lower medal contenders. If they do that again and about 1/4th of the above do that , we may be looking at improving our medal tally above the London tally of 6. The downside is if everyone performs exactly as per their rankings, we may end with 2-3 medals too. Realistically, we are looking at a range between 2-8 medals for us at Rio. I hope the more optimistic scenario materialises.

With the high handedness which Hockey India president Batra has shown in the past, we never know if it was real indiscipline or was it one man's opinion ( it was based on report by Jude Felix). Sardara also has a serious charges levelled against him but he has been pardoned. I appreciate that they have brought importance to the discipline but that does not mean that all their selections are perfect and should not be criticised. The likes of Akashdeep , Daneesh and Uthappa cannot trap the ball properly. There is better talent available in India.

Gurbaz Singh should have been in the team. He is a class act as right in and will be missed. Hockey India seems to have picked on him on some disciplinary grounds and his career seems to be over. Other than that Dharamveer, Lalit Upadhay, Affan Yousseff and Mohd. Amir Khan are a few talented players. A couple of them with Gurbaz ahead of Akashdeep, Uthappa and Daneesh would have made a stronger side. Anyway, we have to go with whatever is picked now. All the best to the side.

But, that has barely happened in the past. At London Olympics of the 14 Indian athletes who qualified only 2 walkers attained their personal bests. Ranjit Maheshwari fouled all his 3 jumps and did not have any mark above 17 mts. in last 6 years. I would be happy if the trend of not doing well at big event changes and at least 75% of those qualified achieve their personal bests. But, considering past history, we should not expect any miracles at Rio and a medal from athletics is a bit far fetched. If at all there is hope it is from a long time consistent performer like Vikas Gowda rather than some of these qualifiers who have attained qualifying marks with incredible spurt in performances which are difficult to repeat in big meets where there is stricter doping control.

Dream come true would be when India picks up a double digit medals at the game. I think we are past the stage where only qualification can be considered as dream come true ( after the next 2 Olympics where we won multiple medals).

I know is is not right over analyse and conclude that their medal potential has reduced or anything which I am not saying. I am only saying that we cannot totally ignore these results by saying that they did not exert themselves fully ( while assuming that their opponents did so.). It does provide some signals which are not good. Hopefully they will use this to correct whatever deficiencies they found. If it would have other way around and Yogeshwar had won a gold here beating world championships medallists on the way, I am sure everyone ( including me) would have been quick to say how he is now a sure fire medal winner at Rio and a gold contender.

That is an excuse. Why did they play if they did not want to exert enough to win. Those were two disappointing losses. Narsingh Yadav lost to Cuban Livian Lopez whom he had destroyed in the world championships. Yogeshwar Dutt lost to another Cuban Bonne who is basically a 57Kg wrestler. He got beaten in next round by a Mongolian wrestler whom Yogi had beaten earlier. Raises questions on their preparation for Rio.

There are no ranking points for mixed doubles. Rohan-Sania should have played together at Wimbledon which would have given them some match practice before Rio. I do not agree with the reason Sania gave in in interview that she had a prior commitment to play with Dodig. Why should she commit in first place when it was well known that she would play mixed doubles for India at Rio ( either with Leander or Rohan).