India at Tokyo Olympics: Day 4 Highlights – utter disappointing day; Sharath Kamal advances, Manika Batra exits

India at Tokyo Olympics: Day 4 Highlights – utter disappointing day; Sharath Kamal advances, Manika Batra exits

Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra

The Indian athletes had a forgettable day four at Tokyo 2020 as most of the matches produced disappointing results. However, fencer Bhavani Devi created history after becoming the first one from India to mark participation in a fencing event at any Olympic edition. She also won her debut match 15-3 against Tunisia’s Nadia Azizi 15-3 before crashing out against a higher-ranked French fencer.

Similar results were seen in the men’s team event of archery as well where the trio of Atanu Das, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav won their pre-quarters match 6-2 against Kazakhstan. However, they lost to the gold-medalist team from South Korea in a one-sided affair for the quarter-final match.

In shooting, Angad Vir Bajwa and Mairaj Ahmad Khan couldn’t enhance their game from yesterday as they finished at 18th and 25th positions respectively in the men’s skeet qualification event. 

Paddlers Sutirtha Mukherjee (round 2) and Manika Batra (round 3) exited from the tournament after suffering crushing losses in their respective matches. Both of them registered defeats with a scoreline of 0-4 where the former lost to Fu Yu (Portugal) while Batra went down against Sofia Polcanova of Austria. 

No glory for Sumit Nagal, Ashish Kumar

Sumit Nagal and Ashish Kumar
Sumit Nagal and Ashish Kumar

Tennis player Sumit Nagal’s journey at the Tokyo Summer Olympics also came to an end after his anticipated defeat against world number two Daniil Medvedev (ROC). Later, pugilist Ashish Kumar also witnessed an unfortunate exit after he lost to China’s Tuoheta Erbieke in the middleweight round of 32 bout.

India’s miseries didn’t end here as the duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty (badminton) also lost their group stage match against the world number one men’s doubles pair of Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo from Indonesia. They went down 13-21, 12-31 against the opponents in a match that lasted just 31 minutes. 

Out of all blues, India’s table tennis legend Achanta Sharath Kamal emerged victorious in his men’s singles round 2 match. He beat the Portuguese paddler Tiago Apolonia with a comfortable scoreline of 4-2 in a seven-set match. However, he will now lock horns against one of the best players of the sport, Ma Long (China) in his next match.

Struggles continue for women’s hockey team

India vs Germany hockey match
India vs Germany hockey match at Tokyo 2020

The Indian women’s hockey team lost yet another match at Tokyo 2020 as Germany registered a win against them at the group stage. However, they fought hard to limit the scoreline to 0-2 unlike their 1-5 defeat against the Netherlands.

Sailors Vishnu Sarvanan and Nethra Kumanan also had races in their respective categories. At the end of day four, Vishnu is placed at the 34th spot with 7 races to go in the Laser Radial event. He finished 14th, 20th and 24th in the races taken place so far.

On the other hand, Nethra finished at 27th as the day came to end following her races 3 and 4. She competed well in her third race of the event to secure the 15h spot but miserably lagged at 40th to conclude her performance today. 

Swimmer Sajan Prakash also raced today where he finished well at number four in the men’s 200m butterfly event. However, he missed a spot in the second round by a narrow margin.

Also Read | Fencing at Tokyo Olympics: Twitterati celebrates as Bhavani Devi creates history with India’s maiden win

Also Read | Tokyo Olympics silver-medalist, Mirabai Chanu honoured by Manipur Government; appointed Additional Superintendent of Police