Day 5 At Olympics: Girls Shine In Various Sports

Indian women shined on day five of the Tokyo Olympics. Pooja Rani qualified for the quarterfinals in Boxing (69-75kg). PV Sindhu and Deepika Kumari qualified for the pre-quarterfinals in Badminton and Archery respectively. However, there are a set of disappointments and crash-outs today as well. Here is a detailed report of the Indian contingent’s performance.

Badminton – Women’s Singles – Group Match:

World Champion PV Sindhu defeated Hong Kong’s Ngan Yi Cheung with a score of 21-9, 21-16 in her second group match. With two wins in a row, Sindhu has now qualified for the pre-quarterfinals.

Badminton – Men’s Singles – Group Match:

In his second and final group match, Sai Praneeth lost to Netherlands’ player Mark Caljouw with a score of 14-21 and 14-21. With this defeat, he lost two out of two group games and got knocked out of the tournament.

Boxing – Women’s Middleweight (69-75kg) – Round of 16:

Indian pugilist Pooja Rani sailed into the quarterfinals with a comfortable 5:0 win against Algerian sportswoman Ichrak Chaib. Pooja is just a win away from securing a medal.

Archery – Women’s Individual:

World Champion Deepika Kumari won the round of 64 quite comfortably against Bhutan’s Karma with a score of 6-0. In the round of 32, she was given a tough competition by America’s J Mucino-Fernandez. Deepika had to sweat it out to win the match with a score of 6-4.

Archery – Men’s Individual:

Two Indians participated in the event today and both of them failed to qualify for the quarter-finals.

Tarundeep Rai won the round of 64 against Ukraine’s Oleksii Hunbin with a score of 6-4. However, he was beaten by Israel’s archer Itay Shanny in a close game in the round of 32 which ended with a score of 5-6.

On the flip side, Pravin Jadhav stunned everyone by knocking out world no.2 Galsan Bazarzhapov with 6-0 in the first round. However, he lost to the world no.1 Brady Ellison with a score of 0-6 in the next round.

Hockey – Women – Group Match:

Our Indian girls are continuing their dismal show in hockey. Today, they witnessed their third defeat in a row. They lost to Great Britain with a score of 0-3 in the group match. The team is yet to win a game in the tournament.

Rowing – Lightweight Men’s Doubles Sculls – Semi-Finals:

The duo of Arjun Lal and Aravind Singh lost in the semifinals by finishing in the sixth position. However, they should be commended for their efforts as they took India to semis for the first time in Rowing.

Sailing – Men’s 49er – Race 2,3,4:

The Indian duo, who are participating in their first Olympics, have ended the second and third races at 18th position and dropped down to the 19th position in race four. Their overall ranking is now at 18. The next race will be held tomorrow.