It was an exciting day for the Indian contingent on Friday, with many athletes getting one step closer to the medal. Lovlina Borgohain storms into women’s welterweight semifinal. PV Sindhu beats Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi and booked her placed in the semifinals. The Indian hockey women team marked their first win, beating Ireland 1-0.
Let’s look at India’s performance on Day 7 at Tokyo Olympics in each event.
Boxing
Lovlina Borgohain stunned former World champion Nien-Chin Chen to reach the women’s 69kg semifinals. And with this win, she assured a second medal for India at the Tokyo Olympics on Friday. Lovlina defeated NC Chen 4-1 in the quarterfinals. She became the third boxer for India to win a medal at the Olympics after Vijender Singh(2008) and Mary Kom(2012).
I don’t want to stop on third place medal, I want to go for the Gold.
“I have been working hard for eight years, so I thought I will have to show that hard work and I just wanted to be aggressive from the start,” said Lovlina after the thumping win.
“Thought I will play it easy, whatever the situation I will handle. I have lost four times. I used to think too much about her. Today I went with the strategy of attacking and not staying on the back foot,” she added.
Simranjit Kaur lost to two-time Worlds medallist Sudaporn Seesondee of Thailand 5-0 in a women’s 60kg pre-quarterfinal match on Friday.
Archery
Deepika Kumari lost her quarterfinal match in the women’s individual event to top seed An San of South Korea at the Tokyo Olympics on Friday. An San won the game in straight sets 6-0. The South Korean archer went on to win the gold medal in the women’s individual events.
“It was a disappointing performance, and I could not perform up to my expectations,” she said after the match.
Before this, Deepika beat Ksenia Perova of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) 6-5 in a shoot-off to enter the last eight. She became the first archer from India to make it to the quarterfinals of the Olympic games. In the 2012 London Olympics, she lost in the first round. In the 2016 Rio Olympics, she bowed out in the pre-quarterfinals.
Hockey
Women’s
Indian women’s hockey team won their first game at the Tokyo Olympics defeating Ireland 1-0 on Friday. Indian team dominated the whole match and a late goal from Navneet Kaur puts India in a driving seat.
They will face South Africa in their last group game tomorrow at 8:45 am IST. If they beat South Africa they will qualify for the quarterfinals given Ireland doesn’t beat Great Britain later in the day.
Men’s
Indian men’s hockey team defeated hosts Japan 5-3 to finish 2nd in Group A and enter the quarter-finals. Gurjant Singh (17th, 56th), Harmanpreet Singh (13th), Shamsher Singh (34th), and Nilakanta Sharma (51st) were the goal scorers for India.
India will play against Great Britain in the quarterfinals on August 1 at 3 pm IST.
Badminton
PV Sindhu continued her great form at the Tokyo Olympics as she defeated the 4th seed, Akane Yamaguchi of Japan, in the quarterfinals. A stunning 21-13, 22-20 win over Yamaguchi and she advanced to the semifinals for the second consecutive time at the Olympics.
A highly tense match, where PV Sindhu got the better of Yamaguchi. In the second set, Sindhu survived two game points and then made a great comeback to clinch the victory. She has looked sharp so far at the Tokyo Olympics, especially her defense game.
“This was the best match of the tournament for me so far. The second game was very crucial. Even though she was leading, I never lost hope. I was ahead 14-8 and all of a sudden she was leading 20-18. My coach was constantly saying, ‘it is okay, it is not over yet… be focused and you can do it and I did it.” Sindhu said after the stellar performance.
PV Sindhu will face the No.2 seeded Chinese Taipei’s Tai Tzu Ying in the semi-final tomorrow.
Shooting
Manu Bhaker and Rahi Sarnobat were knocked out of the 25m pistol qualifications at the Tokyo Olympics on Friday. Manu Bhaker finished 15th in the 44-woman field, Rahi Sarnobat was 32nd. She scored 582/600 and missed the final qualification mark by a mere two points.
Athletics
Dutee Chand failed to make it to the finals as she finished 7th in the 100m heat.
Avinash Sable broke his own record at 3000m steeplechase but failed to qualify for the finals. He clocked 8 minutes 18.12 seconds in heat number 2. He finished seventh next best across all the qualifying heats and 13th overall.
Jabir finished seventh, clocking 50.77 seconds for an overall 33rd position out of 36 competitors.
India’s Mixed Relay team finish 8th in their heats with the season-best time of 3:19.93.
Equestrian
Fouaad Mirza and Seigneur Medicott finish day 1 of Equestrian eventing in 7th position in the standings, with 28.00 points.