Kamalpreet in discus final; losses for Panghal, Sindhu
The women’s hockey team’s perseverance was rewarded with a first Olympic quarterfinal berth in over four decades, while discus thrower Kamalpreet Singh rose from relative obscurity to be in contention for a medal but it was a bad day for the stars of Indian contingent on Saturday.
World number one flyweight boxer Amit Panghal and star shutter PV Sindhu were the big names to experience defeats even though the latter is still in the hunt for a medal when she competes in the Bronze playoff on Sunday.
Success stories of the day was undoubtedly the women’s hockey team and Kamalpreet.
Outplayed in their first three games, Rani Rampal’s team hung in there by beating South Africa 4-3 in their final group engagement and their prayers for a favourable result in the other group match were answered when defending champions Great Britain defeated Ireland 2-0.
That result left India fourth in the group, and set them up for a clash against Australia on Monday. The Indian women last made the quarters of an Olympics in 1980 Moscow edition, where it finished fourth. In the 2016 Rio edition, the team had ended 12th.
Earlier, Virender Sehwag fan Kamalpreet, who wants to play cricket some day, produced one of the best performances by an Indian track and field athlete in the Olympics.
The 25-year-old, competing in qualification B, sent the discus to a distance of 64m in her third and final attempt to be one of the only two automatic qualifiers for the final round, the other being American Valarie Allman (66.42m).
The final will be held on August 2.
The Indian ended ahead of defending gold-medallist Sandra Perkovic (63.75m) of Croatia and reigning world champion Yaime Perez (63.18) of Cuba. Perkovic qualified at third and Perez at seventh.
But barring this, it was a largely disappointing day with Panghal’s pre-quarterfinal exit being the biggest low point.
Panghal was handed a stunning 1-4 loss by Rio Games silver-medallist Yuberjen Martinez. He was beaten by the Colombian’s relentless attacks and pace in a draining pre-quarterfinal bout during which he looked exhausted after the opening round itself.
In fact, it was a thoroughly disappointing day for Indian boxing as Pooja Rani (75kg) joined Panghal (52kg) in exiting the Games after an underwhelming performance, going down 0-5 in her quarterfinal bout against China’s Li Qian.