Rio Olympics 2016, day 5 India highlights: Manoj Kumar, archers light up dismal day

Day five brought mixed fortunes for India, as the country’s wait for their first medal at the Rio Olympics 2016 continued.

The biggest upset of the day for India was shooter Jitu Rai failing to qualify for the men’s 50 pistol, an event he has excelled in the past and was touted to be a medal contender in. The Indian women’s hockey team had a forgettable match against Australia, losing 6-1. However, the women archery pair of Bombayla Devi and Deepika Kumari as well as boxer Manoj Kumar brought some positives for India with their strong victories to advance further.

Here’s how India fared at the Rio Olympics 2016 on day five .

Archery

India’s Bombayla Devi and Deepika Kumari were on targe t as both won two games in a day to advance in the women’s individual recurve event.

Competing in her third Olympics, the 31-year-old Bombayla, who finished 24th in the ranking round, dished out a dominating show to get the better of Chinese Taipei’s Lin Shih-Chia 6-2 in the 1/16 elimination after beating Austria’s Laurence Baldauff in 1/32 elimination round.

Deepika also put up an excellent show as she comprehensively defeated Italy’s Sartori Guendalina 6-2 in the 1/16 elimination, after prevailing over her opponent from Georgia, Kristine Esebua, 6-4 in the 1/32 elimination round. The 22-year-old from Jharkhand, who had lost in the first round in London Games four years ago, came back strongly from a set down to register a dominating 24-27, 29-26, 28-26, 28-27 victory in the end.

Boxing

Pugilist Manoj Kumar’s stunning win over London Olympics’ lightweight bronze-medallist Evaldas Petrauskas in the opening round of the light welterweight (64kg) category was one of India’s brightest silver linings on Wednesday.

Manoj dominated all three rounds to carve out a 29-28, 29-28, 28-29 verdict and advance to the pre-quarterfinals. He prevailed 2-1 in the hard-fought battle in which he had to hold his ground against the intense aggression displayed by Lithuanian Petrauskas in all three rounds. A former Asian bronze-medallist, Manoj will next be up against fifth seed Uzbek Fazliddin Gaibnazarov in the pre-quarters scheduled on Sunday.

“My opponent was strong, but my punches had power. I played according to his punches. I knew he was a hard opponent, so I didn’t go with any strategy to the ring. All strategy was made on the go,” Manoj said after his bout.

Shooting

The exit of Jitu Rai , winner of the gold medal in the same 50m pistol event in both the Commonwealth and Asian Games two years ago, dented India’s hopes of another Olympics shooting gold.

Jitu started the qualification by scoring consistently and managed to hit the bull’s eye on nine occasions in what is considered as his pet event and his cumulative scores after the six series qualification round read 92, 95, 90, 94, 95 and 88 to total 554. But a poor sixth and final series cost him the berth to the finals.

He has never scored a low of 88 in any championship. Last four scores at Rio were 8, 8, 7 and 10. The three low scores took away his entry into the finals, although in the earlier series he had consistently scored highs, remaining in the top eight throughout. Only eight shooters go through to the finals.

“I let my country down. There was wind but I don’t want to make any excuses,” a dejected Jitu Rai said after.  Earlier on Saturday, Jitu had made it to the finals of the men’s 10m Air Pistol event but could not get into medal contention.

Fellow pistol shooter Prakash Nanjappa performed even more dismally to finish 25th out of 41 shooters with 547 in the 50m qualification.

Hockey

The Indian women’s hockey team was outplayed 1-6 by higher-ranked Australia in its third group stage match. The defeat, which must have dented the team’s morale, also raised big doubts over their qualification for the quarter-finals.

The difference between the two teams was clearly on display as world number three Australia scored through Kathryn Slattery (fifth minute), Georgina Morgan (ninth), Jane Claxton (35th), Georgina Parker (36th), Jodie Kenny (43rd and 46th). The Aussies were aggressive throughout and clearly the better team.

For India, Thokchom Anuradha scored the lone goal, a consolation in the last quarter with just 8.3 seconds left on the clock. Coach Neil Hawgood and the team will have a lot to think about ahead of their next match.

It was world Number 13 India’s second loss in three matches and they are now fifth in the Pool B standings. They will face world number five United States on Thursday and world Number two Argentina on Saturday, in two very crunch games.

Weightlifting

Indian weightlifter Satish Sivalingam finished 11th in the men’s 77kg Group B, to end his campaign in Rio.

He lifted a total of 329 kg but was not close to the best lift of 346 kg in his group. The national record holder lifted 143 kg in his first snatch lift and 148 kg in his second snatch lift but he failed to lift 153 kg in his last snatch lift. In the clean and jerk attempt, he lifted 176 kg in the first lift and later lifted 181kg in the second attempt. But he again failed to lift in the third and crashed out of the event.

Sathish, who was the gold medalist in the same category in the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, posted an entry weight of 329 kg and managed to lift 143 in the first round of snatch.

In the next attempt, the 24-year-old managed to lift 5 Kgs more to end with 148 kgs. The third attempt didn’t go well for the lifter as he failed to lift 153 kgs. At the end of the Snatch round, Sivalingam was at fourth place with Indonesian lifter Deni and the Romanian lifter Captari ranked below him. The clean and jerk event saw Sivalingam lift 181 kgs to get a score of 329 after the three attempts, which kept him away from medal contention.

Judo

India’s Avtar Singh lost to Popole Misenga of the Refugee Olympic Team in judo’s 90 Kg Elimination Round of 32 at.

The judoka from Punjab, lost by a single point at the Carioca Arena 2 on Judo Mat 2, following the end of five minutes of regular time.

The 24-year-old suffered two penalty points that made it difficult for him. Misenga, who hails from the Democratic Republic of Congo, effected a shoulder throw on him to seal the victory.

Tennis

The Indian mixed doubles pair of Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna will start their campaign at the ongoing Rio Olympics on Thursday after most of the tennis matches had to be postponed due to rain.