Indian athletes punched below their weight

Rohit Mahajan

Rio de Janeiro, August 22

There  are no guarantees in sport, Sania Mirza reminded us the other day. She’s absolutely right — and there are no guarantees in the Olympics more than any other sporting event. This is the contest among the world’s best sportspersons. Rio 2016 demonstrated that while we’ve got some world-class sportspersons, we don’t have the crème de la crème — the best of the best.

India did have high hopes from a few events — chiefly, the hope lay in shooting, archery, tennis, wrestling, boxing. In hockey, India hoped for a top-five finish. There was a very slim hope of a medal in gymnastics, because we have Dipa Karmakar, who’s among the world’s best in the vault event.

Shooting pains

Shooting caused the biggest discontent for India’s fans. India had won medals in shooting in three straight Olympics — a silver in 2004, a gold in 2008, and silver and bronze in 2012. This time around, India placed its hopes in the gun of Jitu Rai, the 10m and 50m pistol specialist.

On the second day of competition, Rai came close in the 10m pistol event — he got to the eight-man final but was the first shooter to be eliminated, finishing eighth. Eighth in the world isn’t bad, but Rai wanted gold, and he had it in him to get it. In his favourite event, 50m pistol, Rai’s hopes were blown away by the wind at the venue. He didn’t offer that as an excuse, and noted that the wind blew equally for everyone. In the qualification stage, Rai needed a 10 each in his last three shots to qualify for the final; he could manage only an 8, then 7 and 10. He ended up 12th.

Abhinav Bindra, competing in his fifth and final Olympics, missed a medal after a shoot-off with Serhiy Kulish, after the two were tied at 163.8 points after 16 shots in the final. To win bronze, Kulish shot a 10.5, Bindra shot 10 and his hope of a medal ended.

Chances at tennis

Tennis also engendered hope, and the best chance was the mixed-doubles event, in which Rohan Bopanna and Sania Mirza teamed up. The men’s team of Leander Paes and Bopanna had made a first-round exit, but Bopanna and Sania zoomed to the semis. There they met Venus Williams and Rajeev Ram of the US and took the first set comfortably. At least a silver seemed within their reach. Then Venus started firing and India lost through the Super Tiebreaker. They now had a chance to fight for bronze the next day, but they were completely listless in the match against the Czech duo of Radek Stepanek and Lucie Hradecka. Hopes of a tennis medal went up in smoke.

Deepika Kumari didn’t win the medal everyone believes she can win at the Olympics. The ace archer crashed out in the pre-quarterfinals, suffering a big loss to Chinese Taipei’s Tan Ya-Ting. Deepika was beaten 28-27 29-26 30-27 by Tan and this, added to her first-round loss at the London Olympics, raised questions about her ability to handle pressure.

Hockey failure

India’s hockey resurgence over the last few months raised hopes of a medal at Rio; those hopes were not realistic. India would have been happy with a top-5 finish, and reaching the semifinals would have been a great achievement. The format of the tournament favoured India — they had to finish well in the preliminary stage to make it to the quarters in a good position in their pool. They played well overall, but conceded late goals to fall to Germany and Netherlands. Their worst came against Canada, their final game, and it ended in a draw. This ended their chances of finishing third or higher in the group; being fourth in the group pitted them against Belgium, the best team of the other pool. India would have fancied their chances if they’d set up a quarterfinal against Spain or Australia. Belgium were too good. India crashed out in the quarters.

There was horrible news from wrestling — Narsingh Pancham Yadav thrown out of the Games Village because of his doping violation, Yogeshwar Dutt being knocked out on the final day.

Three young women saved India the blushes. Dipa Karmakar’s fourth position in vault felt like a medal-winning performance — an Indian in the Olympics gymnastics final was something no one thought possible. But India still seemed in the danger of returning home without a medal. It was then that Sakshi Malik and PV Sindhu rose to the challenge, getting two medals in two days.