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London: Boxer Vijender Singh, Badminton star Parupalli Kashyap and Table Tennis
youngster Soumyajit Ghosh kept India's spirits up when there was
despair around them on the second day of the Olympic Games here
Saturday.
The country's lone Olympic boxing medallist Vijender Singh did
well to subdue Kazakhstan's Danabek Sukhanov with some quick, hard
punching to win 14-10 points to end the day on a bright note.
Vijender, 27, who won a bronze at the Beijing Games four years
ago, did enough to keep himself ahead in all the three rounds.
He took his time to get the measure of his opponent and once he
got into the rhythm he took the first round 5-4.
Vijender cautiously built up the lead in the second round and a
4-3 verdict gave him a cushion of two points going into the last
round.
The Indian made sure he stayed ahead in the final round and took
it 5-3 using his reach to keep the Kazhak away.
Vijender in the round of 16 faces American Terrell Gausha, who
overpowered Andranik Hukobyan of Armenia in the opening round with
referee stopping the contest.
Vijender's young teenaged teammate Shiva Thapa put up a gallant
show but that was not enough to see him past the first round in
the 56 kg.
The 18-year-old, the youngest Indian boxer to qualify for the
Olympics, saw his dream crushed by Mexican Oscar Valdez Fierro,
who won 14-9.
Olympic first-timers Kashyap and Ghosh went through their
first-round matches comfortably, unmindful of what's happening to
their colleagues in other disciplines, archery, shooting,
weightlifting, rowing and tennis.
Kashyap seemed in great touch as he sped past Belgian Yuhan Tan
21-14, 21-12 in a 38-minute Group D match at the Wembley Arena to
move to the second round.
Kashyap's win made up for the tame loss of mixed doubles pair
Jwala Gutta and V. Diju, who went down to Indonesia's Tontowi
Ahmad and Liliyana Natsi in straight games in their opening group
match 16-21, 12-2.
Jwala was on the losing side in the women's doubles, too, as she
and her partner Ashwini Ponnappa went down 16-21, 18-21 to the
Japanese duo of Mizuki Fujii and Reika Kakiiwa.
Both the mixed doubles and women's doubles teams would need to win
their next two group matches to qualify for the knockouts round.
Nineteen-year-old Ghosh kept India's table tennis challenge alive
as he moved into the second round of the main draw beating
Brazilian Gustavo Tsuboi 4-2 (11-9, 14-12, 7-11, 12-10, 5-11,
12-10) in a 40-minute close contest.
"I should have pushed him hard, but he was good. My shots and
serves worked well today. I am happy I have progressed well," said
Ghosh, who will take on Matiss Burgis of Latvia in round two.
Earlier, the country's other paddler Ankita Das paid the penalty
for making too many unforced errors to bow out of the women's
singles competition wit. She lost 1-4 (9-11 8-11 7-11 11-8 and
2-11) to the higher ranked Sara Ramirez of Spain.
The men's archery team which, which qualified at the eleventh
hour, began the gloomy procession in the morning at the iconic
Lords cricket ground.
The troika of Rahul Banerjee, Jayanta Talukdar and Tarundeep Rai
made a sound start but could not retain the momentum as they
failed to deliver in crunch situations to finally go down to Japan
in a tie-break.
Both teams were tied 214-214 after the stipulated four rounds in
the opening elimination round .
The Japanese team comprising Yu Ishizu, Hideki Kikuchi and
Takaharu Furukaw held their nerves to shoot two tens and a nine in
the shoot-out. In reply, the Indian trio of Jayanta Talukdar,
Rahul Banerjee and Tarundeep Rai could manage only 27 points by
shooting three nines.
The Indians, however, could have clinched the tie in the fourth
round itself had Rahul Banerjee managed to bring home ten points
off the final arrow. But he could manage only nine, which pushed
the clash to the tie-break. Rai, who hit the previous Indian
arrow, also got a poor eight, and in the end these two poor
efforts crushed the team's chances.
The saga of failures stretched to the historic Wimbledon grass
court, with the Indian women's doubles pair of Sania Mirza and
Rushmi Chakarvarthi getting knocked out of the tennis competition
with a 1-6, 6-3, 1-6 defeat to Chia-Jung Chuang and Su-Wei Hsieh
of Chinese Taipei in the opening round.
In the power sports of weight lifting, women's 48 kg competitor
Soniya Ngangbam Chanu had to be satisfied with the seventh spot
with a total haul of 171 kgs (74 kg in snath and 97 kg in clean
and jerk).
The country's campaign also floundered at the range, from where
there has been much pre-Games talk of attaining medal successes.
Pistol shooter Vijay Kumar finished way down at the 31st slot in
the qualification round garnering only 570 points, thereby failing
to reach the final of the men's 10metre air pistol event.
In rowing, Swarn Singh Virk failed to qualify for the quarterfinal
of the men's single sculls after he finished fifth with a timing
of 6:54.04 in heat 1. The Indian, however, has qualified for the
repechage round that kept alive his hopes.
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