Olympics, biggest sporting event which happens once every four years. Once again it wasn't a successful campaign for India. When most of the known contestants who won in previous attempts failed our expectation, but few really surprised us.
I don't remember following Olympics closely previously. This time I have watched many events live and tracked most of the events online. Maybe because of social media and Star network's coverage are the reasons. And, I feel it's over suddenly, just when India started winning some medals ;).
The first event I saw live was Indian women team's archery against Russia. After a poor start, they came back well to win the second and third sets. And, few misses in the final and the shootouts made them bow out of that event. They were close to winning. And, in men's archery Atanu Das was stunning who constantly got 10 points and had high hope on him, but he was out in the quarterfinals.
Abhinav Bhindra, it was heartbreaking to see him lose third place by a whisker. We were watching it live, but we didn't understand what happened for a few minutes. And, when we changed the channel, our Indian men were playing hockey against Germans and it was 1-1. We were watching the last few seconds and Germany managed to score one and win the game in the last few seconds.
Dipa Karmakar, we watched her qualifying round, even though couldn't understand the format, was happy that she got selected to the finals. Again, she too missed her medal by a mere 0.15 points. But, she was the one to watch out in the future. I hope she wins big next time. And, her performance Produnova was considered very dangerous and called Death Vault, really hats off to her to become fourth best in the world.
Then we kept losing in most of events and didn't open the medals tally. We lost in the hockey as well, in which I had some high hopes. Finally, it was Sakshi Malik, first women wrestler to win an Olympic medal, opened India's account with a bronze medal. It was great and fantastic achievement.
Also, P V Sindhu. who made everyone to watch badminton games live. She won the semi-finals easily against the Japanese and became the first Indian women to play in an Olympics finals. She fought hard against the world's best Carolina Marin and gave her a tough fight and she won the first set. Marin played brutally in the second set, especially her smashes. Even the third set were at 10-10 at one stage, but Marin proved to be world class. Still Sindhu made history with a silver medal in the Olympics. And, her coach Gopichand should be lauded as well, who was behind Saina when she won the Bronze last time.
This time our medals tally were less than last year, some familiar names like Abhinav Bhindra, Gagan Narang, Yogeswar Dutt, Saina Nehwal who all won a medal in their previous attempts couldn't continue to do so this time. But, we had some new heroes emerging this year Dipa Kamrakar, Sakshi Malik and P V Sindhu. Let's hope for a better outing next time. And, all those
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| Including me, of course |
