Tokyo Olympics 2020 Day 9 Highlights: Indian women's hockey team qualifies for quarterfinal

Day 9 at the Games turned to be a little disappointing for India as PV Sindhu crashed out of the quarter-finals while Pooja Rani lost in the same stage of her boxing bout.

The Tokyo Olympics has reached its halfway point with day 9, as athletes scurry to secure precious medals. At the top, the People’s Republic of China are the favourites to win more medals. Hosts Japan and the USA are also in the reckoning.

For India on Saturday, Kamalpreet Kaur reached the final of discus throwing and PV Sindhu lost in the semifinal of badminton. Indian women's hockey team beat South Africa in a hard fought battle on day 9 of Tokyo Olympics and advanced to the quarterfinal. Other than that, few other Indian athletes excelled while others bowed out at the end of day 9 at Tokyo Olympics.

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Badminton

India's medal aspirant PV Sindhu saw her dreams crushed after losing to world no.1 Tai Tzu-ying. She was beaten in badminton women's singles semi-finals.

After putting up a commendable display in the first game, Sindhu fell off in the second set to lose 18-21, 12-21. She will now face China's He Bingjiao in the bronze medal match on Sunday.

Hockey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPcpx5eAwxo&pp=sAQA

The Indian women’s hockey team put up an excellent showing against South Africa and won the game 4-3! It was one for the history books as forward Vandana Katariya became the first Indian woman to score a hat-trick in an Olympic game.

Later in the day, Great Britain's women's hockey team defeated Ireland, ensuring India's qualification to the quarterfinals.

Athletics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INe9ZrqrMoo&t=6s&pp=sAQA

In the women’s discus throw event, Seema Punia and national record holder Kamalpreet Kaur represented India. Kaur put in a remarkable effort, finishing second overall in qualification with 64.00m throw and qualifying for the final. Punia, however, finished 16th overall and could not progress further.

India's aspirant in the men's long jump category, M Sreeshankar could not qualify for the finals. He failed to match his personal best score and only managed a best jump of 7.69m. It wasn't enough to help him get into the top-8 for the finals.

Boxing

In the men’s flyweight category, Indian boxer Amit Panghal failed to defeat Colombian boxer Yuberjen Martinez in the round of 16. The Indian boxer started the bout in brilliant fashion, damaging his opponent with some swift blows.

However, Panghal lost his concentration paid the price. He lost the bout 1-4 and was eliminated from the Tokyo Olympics.

Pooja Rani suffered heartbreak in the women's middleweight quarter-finals, losing to Chinese boxer Li Qian. She lost 0-5 against her Chinese counterpart.

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Archery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPlQ9wnbSgk&pp=sAQA

India’s medal hopeful Atanu Das also saw his dreams end after being eliminated in the quarter-finals. He suffered bitter defeat to Japan’s Takaharu Furukawa in the men’s individual archery 1/8 elimination round, losing by a margin of 4-6 despite making a valiant effort.

Shooting

There were also disappointments in store in shooting for the women’s 50m rifle 3 qualifications round, as neither Anjum Moudgil nor Tejaswini Sawant could qualify for the medal event.

Moudgil finished in 15th position with a total score of 1167, while Sawant finished in the third place with a score of 1154 – which weren’t enough to help them get the top-8 finish needed to get to the finals.

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Sailing

The Indian duo of Ganapathy Kelapanda and Varun Thakkar failed to qualify for the men’s skiff 49er final event after the final three races. They finished Race 10 in 16th place, but improved really well to finish Race 11 in ninth place! However, they fell again to manage a 14th place finish in Race 12, failing to make the cut for the finals.

Equestrian

Fouaad Mirza is India’s sole participant in the individual eventing dressage events and managed an impressive seventh-place finish on Friday. However, he fell down to ninth place in the third Session on Saturday.

Golf

The duo of Anirban Lahiri and Udayan Mane failed to catch up with the top in the individual stroke play event on Saturday. Lahiri finished the day with a score of -6 to par, finishing on 28th place in the overall rankings, as he’ll need a flurry of birdies to move up to the top half of the rankings on Sunday.

Mane failed to get out of the bottom and is ranked 55th after finishing day 3 with a score of +2 par.

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