Tokyo Olympics Day 5: Lovlina Borgohain edges closer to medal

Indian men's hockey team impress with their performance.

The Tokyo Olympics for the Indian contingent are moving into their business end with rapid pace. A number of indoor events ended on day 5 of the Tokyo Olympics. The well represented Indian contingent is still trying to earn more medals for the country. Mirabai Chanu is the only medalist for India in the tournament so far.

A number of athletes were in action on Tuesday, in both individual and team events. The likes of the Indian men's hockey team, badminton teams and shooting teams all participated in some interesting encounters. Here is the summary of the day’s action, as we look at what transpired in the Indian athletes' events:

Hockey

The Indian men’s hockey team picked up a resounding 3-0 win over Spain in their final group stage encounter. Simranjeet Singh opened the scoring by finishing off a lovely move, before full-back Rupinder Pal Singh scored twice.

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With the win, India are now likely to qualify for the knockout stages, despite suffering the heavy defeat to Australia earlier.

Boxing

Indian pugilist Lovlina Borgohain pulled off a stunning win over German boxer Nadine Apetz in the third round of the Women’s 69kg welterweight category. The 23-year-old Indian star won 3-2 (28-29, 29-28, 30-27, 30-27, 27-30 ) by split decision, after a gruelling affair to qualify for the quarterfinals!

She will next face Chinese Taipei’s Chen Nien-chin on 30th July at 8:48 am in the quarterfinals to secure a medal at the Tokyo Olympics.

ALSO READ: Who are India’s realistic hopes for a Tokyo Olympics medal after Day 4?

Shooting

The Indian contingent’s disappointments in shooting continued on Day 5. In the 10m air pistol mixed team event, Indian duo Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Chaudhary put up a respectable showing in the qualifying for the gold medal event, even reaching the second round! However, they failed to qualify for the final after finishing seventh in the second round and were knocked out. The other Indian duo Yashaswini Singh Deswal and Abhishek Verma were knocked out in the first round of qualifying itself.  

In the 10m mixed team Air Rifle event, it was a similar case of a disappointment for the Indian athletes. The promising young duo of Divyansh Singh Panwar and Elavenil Valarivan as well as the experienced one of Deepak Kumar and Anjum Moudgil both failed to progress to the second round of qualifying for the medal event. Divyansh and Elavenil finished 12th, while Kumar and Anjum finished 18th among the 29 mixed teams – with only the top eight making the cut for the final round of qualifying before the medal event.

Badminton

The Indian men’s double duo of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy put in an admirable effort against UK duo Sean Vendy and Ben Lane in their final group stages match. They won the match in straight games 21-17, 21-19 – but that wasn’t enough to help them qualify for the knockout rounds.

Despite being on the same number of wins as the Chinese Taipei pair of Lee Yang and Wang Chi-lin (2), the Indian duo failed to qualify because of having won one less game in the group, overall. Regardless, Shetty and Rankireddy made themselves proud at the Olympics stages and should gain a lot of confidence from their impressive outing.

Table Tennis

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Sharath Kamal faced off against Chinese paddler Ma Long in an intense encounter, but could not come out on top. Instead, the 39-year-old suffered a loss with the score of 7-11, 11-8, 11-13, 4-11, 4-11–becoming the final Indian table tennis player to be eliminated.   

Sailing

In the Women’s Laser Radial One Person Dinghy event, Indian sailor Nethra Kumanan had a rather disappointing day. In race 5, she finished in 32nd position. Things did not improve in Race 6 at all, as she finished in the 39th position.

In the Men’s Laser Radial one Person Dinghy event, Vishnu Saravan made a great start in Race 4, but failed to capitalize on it. He only finished the race in 22nd position. Things didn’t really improve in Race 5 for Vishnu, as he just gained one place and finished in 22nd position.

However, Vishnu Saravan ended the day on a high note as he registered his best performance at the Tokyo Olympics in Race 5. He finished in 12th position out of 34 participants.

Elsewhere, the Indian duo of K.C. Ganapathy and Varun Thakkar finished in the 18th position out of 19 participants in Race 1 of the men’s skiff 49er event.

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