A historic first day at the Tokyo Olympics for India. Mirabai Chanu won India’s first medal at the Tokyo Olympics, winning a silver medal in 49kg weightlifting with a total lift of 202 kg. This is the first time India has won a medal on the first day of an Olympic Games. Overall, she became the 2nd Indian, after Karnam Malleswari, to bag a medal for India in weightlifting.
In Rio 2016, she could not record even a single valid lift in the clean and jerk round. She broke down and went into depression. But, Mirabai didn’t give up. She defeated depression, worked hard, and come back stronger. And now there she is – won a silver medal for the country, the first for India at Tokyo 2020.
“It’s really a dream come true for me. I would like to dedicate this medal to my country and would like to thank a billion prayers of all Indians, which were with me during this journey,” Mirabai said after winning the silver medal.
Archery mixed event
India’s day started with Archery mixed events where we saw a dramatic turnaround. Deepika Kumari and Pravin Jadhav defeated the Chinese Taipei pair to qualify for the Quarterfinals. But they, eventually lost in the quarterfinals to Korea by 3-1.
The Korean duo, Kim Je Deok, and An San went onto win the gold medal in the first-ever mixed-team archery event in the Olympics.
Hockey
Men’s
Indian men’s hockey team clinched a 3-2 win over New Zealand in their first match of the Tokyo Olympics. Harmanpreet Singh (2) and Rupinder Pal Singh (1) scored goals from India. All three of India’s goals came from penalty corners. But Sreejesh was the hero for India in the opener. The wall of India made a succession of big saves (6/8 saves) towards the end and helped India to win the opener. India will play against mighty Australia in the second match on Sunday at 3:00 pm IST.
Women’s
The Indian women’s hockey faced a big loss 1-5 against world no.1 Netherlands in their opening pool match at the Tokyo Olympics. They showed great spark in the first two quarters but then lost the momentum in the later stage of the game. India’s lone goal was scored by skipper Rani Rampal in the 10th minute. India will play Germany in their next Pool A match on July 26.
Judo
Sushila Likmabam lost to Eva Csernoviczki in the Round of 32 (48kg). Sushila fought hard for a major part of the bout. She was the only Indian Judo athlete at this year’s Olympic Games.
Table Tennis mixed doubles
Manika Batra and Sharad Kamal lost four straight sets in Round of 16 of Mixed doubles against World No. 1 pairing of Lin Yun Ju and Cheng I Ching. The India duo went down in just 27 minutes.
Table Tennis singles
Manika Batra beats Great Britain’s Tin Ho in a four straight-set (11-7, 11-6, 12-10, 11-9) and advances to Round 2. She became the first Indian woman to win a Table Tennis match at Olympics in 1992.
Manika Batra will face Ukraine’s Margaryta Pesotska in the second round.
In another match, Sutirtha Mukherjee came from behind to beat Sweden’s Linda Bergstrom 4-3 (5-11, 11-9, 11-13, 9-11, 11-3, 11-9, 11-5) and proceeds to the second round. Sutirtha Mukherjee will face Portugal’s Yu Fu in the second round.
Shooting
Sourabh Choudhary topped the table in the qualification round with 586/600 in 10m air pistol. He struck 10s 46 times in six series of 10 competition shots to advance to the finals. Abhishek Verma finished 17th.
But sadly, Sourabh couldn’t continue his great form and finished seventh in the men’s 10m air pistol final.
Badminton
The India duo, Chirag and Satwik pulled off a great comeback as they beat the Chinese Taipei pair by 2-1 (21-16, 16-21, 27-25) in their first Group A match at the Tokyo Olympics. The duo will face the Indonesians in the next round Monday.
In another match, Sai Praneeth, the world No.13 suffered a huge loss in the opening game. He lost straight games 21-17, 21-15 to Israel’s Misha Zilberman in Group D men’s single.
Tennis
Sumit Nagal defeated Uzbekistan’s Dennis Istomin 6-4, 6-7 (6), 6-4 in his opening game of the Tokyo Olympics. He became the first Indian to win a singles match at the Olympics since Leander Paes won bronze at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Nagal will now face world No.2, Daniil Medvedev, in the 2nd round.
Boxing
Boxer Vikas Krishna lost against Japan’s Swonerets Okazawa in the first round of the Tokyo Olympics. The world No. 6 Sewonrets Okazawa won by a 5-0 margin at the Ryogoku Kokugikan arena.
On Sunday, London Olympics bronze medallist MC Mary Kom will play her opening game against Dominica’s Miguelina Hernandez in the women’s flyweight (51kg) category.
Sixth seed Manish Kaushik will take on Britain’s Luke McCormack in the men’s lightweight (63kg) round of 32.