India at Rio

 

A day to go for the greatest extravaganza of the planet and we just can’t wait it to start. So many nations, so many athletes, so many aspirations – all gathered at one village in Rio. In a fortnight from now, a million dreams would have been fulfilled and at the same time, a billion dreams would have been shattered and this is the reality of the games – many aims for the glory but only one team/athlete wins the Gold. So, who will win the Gold for India this time?

India is sending her largest contingent to the Olympics – more than 115 (some athletes like Inderjeet Singh has missed the chance) athletes compared to just 83 last time. India has always been that country who is the cynosure of all the eyes because of its poor medal to no. of athletes’ ratio. However, off late India has shown vast improvement that led to winning 6 medals in London Olympics; Sushil Kumar came very close to winning a Gold medal in Wrestling but ultimately had to be content with a Silver Medal.

The predictions for this Olympics are as follows :-

S.No.	Game	Best Case Scenario			Worst Case Scenario			Realistic Chances
		Gold	Silver	Bronze	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1	Archery	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	1	0
2	Athletics	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
3	Badminton	1	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	0
4	Boxing	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	1
5	Hockey	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
6	Golf	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
7	Gymnastics	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
8	Judo	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
9	Rowing	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
10	Shooting	2	1	1	0	1	1	1	0	2
11	Swimming	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
12	Table Tennis	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
13	Tennis	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
14	Weightlifting	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
15	Wrestling	1	1	1	0	0	1	1	0	1
	Total	4	3	7	0	1	3	2	2	4
		14			4			8

 

So, India has realistic chances of winning 8 medals in this Olympics. There are some games where we are travellers like Athletics, Golf, Judo, Swimming, Table Tennis, Weightlifting etc. but there are sports where India has genuine chances of winning medals

Archery

India is competing in three events of Archery – Women’s Team, Women’s Individual & Men’s Individual where the best chance of winning the medal is in Women’s Team event where Deepika Kumari, Laxmirani Manjhi and Bombayala Devi will brush their shoulder with the best in the world. Indian team is ranked 4^th in the world and if they justify their rankings in the qualifying round – they will directly qualify for Quarter-finals. From there onwards, it is a matter of just two rounds and India can win her first medal in this ancient sport.

Deepika Kumari and Atanu Das are competing in Individual events where the scores of the former makes her one of the strong contender for the medal but her inconsistency may prevent her from winning a medal.

Archery has been one of the sports where Indian performance has been exceptional at the world level but that has not translated in medals at Olympics. Hopefully, India changes the course of history this time around.

Badminton

India has her presence in four events – Men’s Individual (K. Shrikanth), Women’s Individual (Saina Nehwal, P. Sindhu), Men’s Doubles (Manu Attri & B. Sumeeth Reddy) and Women’s Doubles (Jwala Gutta & Ashwini Ponappa).

India’s best bet is ever dependable Saina Nehwal but she has a tough draw where she would meet Olympics Champion Li Xuerei in Quarter-finals and World Champion Carolina Marin in Semi-Finals , if she reaches there.  PV Sindhu’s path is also full of thorns where she has to cross Wang Yihan in Quarter Finals. But, Olympic medals are not won without crossing these challenges and I feel Saina Is prepared to change the colour of her medal.

K Srikanth will be pitted against Jan O Jorgensen at Pre quarter-Finals and if he crosses the hurdle, he will be up against Lin Dan in Quarter-Finals. I think that should be the end of the challenge for top men shuttler. The rest two teams don’t hold much promise in the run up to the Olympics.

Badminton is one of the events where one medal must be won and the colour of the medal depends on the performance of the shutters on the day.

Boxing

Boxing is a game that has been systematically destroyed by the officialdom. The Indian boxers held such a good promise at last Olympics (though they could win only one medal) and had we moved along the same curve of progress, we would have been a force to reckon with in this Olympics but that was not to be and only three boxers qualified for the main event – Shiva Thapa (Bantamweight), Manoj Kumar (Light Welterweight) and Vikas Krishan Yadav (Middleweight).

Shiva Thapa has a world ranking of 3 in his weight category and he is the only boxer who has a realistic chance of winning a medal. Rest two boxers are also great boxer and can beat anyone on their day but it seems a far cry for them to carry their form in all the rounds.

Shooting

12 shooters have qualified for the Olympics which are one more than the last Olympics and this sport will set the medal tally ticking from day one itself.

The greatest chance for India is from Jeetu Rai in 50m Pistol event where he is currently ranked no. -2 in the world. It will not be a surprise if he wins another medal in 10m Pistol too where he is ranked No. – 3. Jeetu has a nerve of steel and he remains calm in any situation. He is our greatest hope for a Gold Medal. Apart from him, the last time Olympian Abhinav Bindra and Gagan Narang will compete against each other on 10m Air Rifle and this is one event where India must win at least one medal. In women’s section, Heena Sindhu will be aiming high after her world record score and Apurvi Chandela is a medal prospect too. Apart from these shooters, other shooters like Prakash Nanjappa, Chain Singh, Gurpreet Singh, Kynan Chenai, Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Mairaj Ahmed Khan can surprise anyone with their performance on D-day.

It will be really disappointing if India doesn’t win 3-4 medals in Shooting and this is one sport where India will have to perform if it has to cross the medal count of last Olympics.

Tennis

Only the mixed doubles pair of Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna has any remote chance of getting close to medal not because they are not good players but because of the fact that they don’t play with each other regularly.

Wrestling

India is sending its largest contingent of 8 wrestlers to Olympics and we can win at least two medals from this sports. Had this controversy of Narsingh Yadav not erupted, he was a sure shot contended for winning a medal alongwith Yogeshwar Dutt. Yogeshwar Dutt will definitely look for winning Gold in his last Olympics. Vinesh is also a good medal prospect in Women’s wrestling.

 

Overall, India can better her medal tally from last Olympics and keep on walking on the path of improvement in Sports. Let us all pray that on the eve of 70^th Independence Day- India comes with her largest medal haul from the Olympics!!!!!