Day-6. Laws of probability

Today India's outing was perfectly matched with laws of probability.  In fact it has been roughly the case with most of the days. We can actually count the number of medals India would win by taking the number of athletes participating and average number of rounds in all events and applying a 1/2 probability for win and loss. The result wouldn't be very far from reality.

 Today Ronjan Sodhi disappointed in Men's double trap. Yet again last couple of missed shots proved costly. He was well with a chance till the very last of the third round. On the other hand Vijay kumar did well to stay afloat in the 25 Mr centre fire pistol with the next round of qualification due today. 1 in 1 out.

 Later part of the day Jai Bhagwan lost to a much superior boxer in 69KG category. First round he looked solid but second round onwards it was one way traffic. Later in the evening Vijendar survived a close match with score reading 15-16 and made it to the quarter finals.  1 in 1 out.

In Badminton then Saina again showing breathtaking form entered the semi finals. The games started with a line call argument and there were many umpiring errors all along. The usually calm Gopi actually could  be heard telling it to the chair umpire that this is the 4th time in the match it has happened. Followed by couple of words to Saina "thoda aage rahna".  It looked for once that the game would go to the third round as the Danish girl had the game point in the second game. But this time unlike the other games of Saina, she didn't leave it to the third game and finished up in second by pushing a little harder. It will help her keep the stamina for all crucial semi-final match which is in the morning session today. Then came mens quarterfinal. Kashyap fought like a warrior and was in a very good chance in the first game. A little stroke of luck could have won him the first game and then who knows. But he was a against a huge force in the form of world number one Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia. In the whole match I don't remember even one smash of of the malasian hitting the net.  Kashyap could match him in the first game is a huge credit for him.1 in 1 out prevailed here as well..
 The sole entry remaining in tennis Paes and Sania moved to the quarter finals  where they will meet Azarenka and Mirnyi. This will be a good match and a win will move them to semis with a very good chance of medal. The problem with Sania and Paes is none of them are good servers so they have to work a little hard or sometime harder to hold their serve than breaking other's.

Today's Menu

Saina Semis against the world number 1 Yihan Wang who has a perfect record again Saina. It will be a tough match for her.

In shooting Vijay kumar will look to consolidate his position in the next qualification round and move to final in 25 Mtr centre fire pistol.  Another event in the 50 mr rifle prone where india is represented by Joydeep Karmkar and the medalist gagan Narang. This is not Gagans favorite competition but he may be yearning for gold and will be under lesser pressure now.

In Boxing Vikas Krishna will be playing his pre-quarter final match after getting a bye in the first round in the 69Kg Category. he is one of the 4 boxers remaining in fray with 1 already moved to quarters. Applying probability here would mean that at least 1 boxer will go to semi-finals. In boxing unlike other events 2 bronze medals are given so entering in semis is assurance of a medal.

Paes Sania will be playing the quarter final today. Probabilistically they would lose? but wait probability owes india tennis a bit as Both Mahesh-Bopanna and Lee-Vardhan lost in the second round.

From today onwards athletics events are starting which are the core attractions of the games. India has it's fair share of participation but I think it will remain as just participation. Even probability wont come to Indias rescue as the number of people per event are mostly 1 or 2. Nonetheless They too deserve a mention and need to be followed.  India after independence is still yearning for an athletics medal. Milkha singh and PT Usha have reached the closest.

India will be featuring today in

Shot Put : Om Prakash Singh
Triple Jump : Mayookha Johny

In Hockey India will take on Germany. Today I guess we will know whether we should shoot for 5-8th or 9-12th place.

Apart from the people in fray, with the hockey team fizzling out the only good medals hopes are merry kom and the wrestlers who will complete next week. Good as the Indian interest would go on for someone time.

Day-5 A mixed bag

If the medal prospects are to be considered then day-5 was actually more of a dissappointment than a mixed bag. But in spite of the average results, doubtably yesterday was the most "eventfull" day for india of all games. Eventfull because not sure I had ever witnessed so many games involving india in a single day. To make it perfect there were controversies involved too.
Day before yesterday I had written about the heartbreaking story of Jwala-Ashwini. Yesterday the first news which came out on a online news portal is that 8 women doubles quarter finalists are disqualified on charges of match fixing and India to appeal for Jwala-ashwini's Inclusion in quater finals. In parallel another story floating that india has lodged a protest with IOC claiming that the match involving chainease taipe and japan wasnt played in the best of playing spirit. After some time the news on a online news portal was "Jwala and Ashwini are back in the quarter finals. In parallel one report said indias plea is rejected. This is a very clever way to keep the news floating and keep the interest going. Whereas the reality was the following. Jwala and Ashwini were in group B. 8 players were indeed suspended and were out of womens doubles and yes they were the quarter finalists. These players conspire and as already had qualified for quarter finals allegedly threw away their matches as one does while playing with their children. The serves were hitting the nets the shots were intentionally hit wide and long. The crowd jeered them when the game was over. But these players were in group A and C and not in B. Based on this Jwala and Ashwini could have been included only if IOC decided to include next 4 teams in the quarters since existing 4 are disqualified, which is very unlikely. India appeal was rejected as unlike the other games the japan-chinease taipe game didnt obviously reveal any underperformance and thus it was end of road for Jwala and Ashwini.
On the actaul sports, it started with another brilliant endevour by Kashyap. This time he was up against a shri lankan, a very attacking playing much like kashyap himself. Kashyap didnt offer him much chance in first game but in the second the Sri lankan changed his game by prodding Kashyap to end the rallies quickly and thus make unforced errors. He was successfull as the score line once was 20-07 in favor of the Lankan. But then something dramatic happened. Kashyap being 13 game points down went in his shell and started defensively returning whatever lankan had to throw at him and thus won 8 straight points as the lankan was getting impatient. Kashyap lost the game 21-15 but he had found the receipe for the third set. He won the third set confortably to move to the quarter finals. First ever indian to do that. A truely remarkable feat. His next meeting is with the world number 1. Lets see whats in store for us today evening. Watch the game for Kashyaps brilliance and Gopis pensive strategying.
Saina as expected very confortably moved to quarters. These walkaway victories to saina are like idlis to south indians so nothing more needs to be said. Just keep yourself free today evening for these two quarter finals.
Now the disappointments. From where to start? Deepika kumari the world number 1 was very ordinary may be first olypic nerves getting better of her. Shooter missed the targets. But the shocker came in hockey where New Zealand thrashed us 3-1. New Zealand? Seriously?. Better india does not qualify for olympic hockey and save us the embarrasment
The last match of the day was the mens doubles second round match featuring paes-vardhan and tsonga-llorda of france. You watch matches like this and wonder if Paes is the best sportsmen india ever produced. 39 years of age playing against second seeded with a lesser known player as partener and this guy giving the opponents a run for their money single handedly. The match eventually lost by india but these losses dont hurt as much as 3-1 trashing by kiwis. Paes was taking care of Vishnu like his younger brother and was covering almost three fourth of court. They lost the first set in tie breaker, won the second but lost the third one narrowly to lose the game. Full marks to vishnu for playing a learning game with good serve and return. This guy has a bright future. But Paes is simply exceptional. Have seen him playing along side a calm Ramesh krishnan, mahesh bhupati and martina narvatilova and now vishnu vardhan goes to show how accomplished a doubles player he is.
Today I get a feel that we will have another medal to our tally. Ronjan Sodhi will bring some good news in doubles trap.
Todays Menu
Medal hope : Ronjan Sodhi (shooting).
Arjun: Saina, Jai Bhagwan and Vijendar in boxing.
Abhimanyu: Kashyap, Paes-Sania

Day 4 - day of heartbreakings

Another jinxed day for india. Bhupathi-bopanna went down in the second round. All the archers except Deepika kumari went out of competition but the most disappointing of all was the way Jwala-ashwini after a brilliant victory found themselves out of contention due to bad communication or bad math and bad luck.
It reminded back the famous story of 2003 cricket world cup game where the south africa needed to win to qualify for the knock-outs. The match resumed after rain and Nick Boje was carrying a calculation sheet which effectively had the "score needed" calculated by the cricketing formula invented by messers Duckworth and Lewis. Mark Boucher hit a six and achieved the score needed as per the sheet and then played non scoring defensive shot on the last ball to make sure SA doesnt lose any more wickets.
But then once the game was over people realised that the sheet contained the par score and not the winning one. The game was declared as tied, points were split and the south africa unfortunnatly went packing well not actually as they were the host then.
We would never know as not many bother but I think something similar would have happened yesterday. The girls won their last game and in the group of 4 it was a three way tie between japan, chainese taipe and india. In point differnce (points won - conceded), chinease taipe was much ahead and japan ended up just one point more than india to move to the next round. The indian girls were up 11-1 in the second game when they momentarily lost the grip but eventually won it 21-15. Had it be 21-14 or 21-13 they would have made it. From 11-1 up it wasnt that tough to win by 21-13 if they had known that it matters. The commentators were also not sure and were saying that only 5 point differential is needed. Not sure what happened. Whether the other game wasnt finished so the exact situation wasnt known or it was a mistake in calculation or the girls knew it but still couldnt maintain the margin. The bottom line is they are out whereas they could have been in quarters, just 2 matches away from a medal. Nevertheless they put on excellent fight. They as a team were deceptively attacking. Jwala with stronger frame plays the touch game and the frail Ashwini hits deadly smashes, the pair will go a long way.
Archery brought disappointment again. More I am watching archery more it looks like it is a game of only nerves. Coaches should seriously consider using ear plugs and side patches for eyes so that the archer doesnt get to know the scores.
Loss of bhupati-bopanna shouldnt make paes complicent as I was hoping on their professsional rivalry to get india a medal.
There were some silverlinings too on a otherwise a dissapointing day. Kashyap wrapped the game against the world number 11 as if to meet an urgent appointment. He looked like a man possesed. Possesed with the spirit of boom boom becker of the 80s. if he continues like this one medal is assured for india. With 2 more boxers winning their bouts now we have 5 boxers in the pre-quarters.

Todays Menu Arjun: Saina (pre quarters), deepika kumari (archery) Abhimanyu: Kashyap(pre quarters).
hockey match against New Zealand.
Paes in both mens and mixed doubles.
Wishful medal hope: anu raj singh, sarnobat rahi: both shooting.

Day-3 A hardworkers successfull day

Today india openned its account at the olympic. Overall it was a hardworkers day without much of luck. Sangwan lost his bout by 1 point where it appeared that he had the upper hand but the ruling went against him. In hockey agaanst a much superior side inda put up a good fighting show. If It wasnt for the 2 missed chances the story would have been different. First Raghunath mistimed the juicy rebound he got in his first penalty corner and then in the last minute, we had a chance to send one in from a slit when umpire had played advantage in spite of dutch foul.
The Vishnu vardhan lost his singles match whihc is good as he can concentrate on the more realistic propspect in doubles.
Saina again didnt have to sweat to get past the Belgian girl. Coincidentally the Belgian girls brother was beaten by Kashyap in the mens event. Paes-vishnu and mahesh-rohan moved to the next round in 3 setters. Add someone named bramha to the team and we can call our mens tennis team "tridev".
Jwala and ashwini won their game too to remain in hunt in womens doubles.

Today it doesnt look like any medals coming indias way. The archers, shuttlers, boxers and tennis players will be playing important matches if they do well we will be assured of more entertainment for the remaining of the week.


Today is rememberence day of my favorite singer Mohd Rafi. India has to follow "man re too kahe na dheer dhare" or "mai Zndagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya" else it will end up as " kya se kya ho gaya"

Todays Menu

Ver Wishfull medal hope: sarvan singh (rowing)

Abhimanyu :

archery: tarandeep rai, rahul banerjee, jayant talukdar

boxing: manoj kumar, laishram

Weitghtlifting: rajesh katalu

Badminton:kashyap, jwala-ashwini

Tennis: round 2 mens doubles

Day-2. Eye opener for india

Day-2 was a realistic day for India, underlining that it is Olympic and not a franchise owned competition. The only victorious of the day were Saina in badminton and Jai Bhagwan in boxing. I could watch the second match live and recording of the first as again the Saina's match couldn't be shown live. Both the players were in complete command of the game just doing target practice for the next round. Saina's emphatic victory again shown that in badminton it "Saina Vs China".  Saina is world number 4 and top 3 are from China and they all are named Wang.  Same was with the story with Jai Bhagwan he was twinkle-toeing with the grace of a bandminton player in the boxing ring. 
  The rest of the story was very sad. The Archery team with world number #1 Deepika Kumari in, we didn't expect them to lose in the first round. But it happened and again the difference was just 1 point. In Badminton Diju and Jwala lost their second match and now are out of the competition. The doubles game looked like 2 single players trying to play their part.  There was lack of co-ordination otherwise I sincerely felt that game of our players were more solid. May be Jwala is facing a huge load of expectations and she needs to be extra fit as she is participating in Women's doubles too. Hopefully Jwala will do well in the women's double, she has the fighting spirit for sure.
   Soumyajit Ghose lost in TT which was expected. Somdev Devvarman lost in first round of tennis, we expected him to at least win couple of matches. Vishnu Vardhan who went to games as Leander's Double partner (Paes was wondering that he even has the grass court shoes) luckily got a wild card entry into singles. Tennis event was badly affected by rain yesterday so lots of matches will be happen today. Watch out for Paes, he is playing for 1. india in 2.olympic and on 3. grass. His maneuvering on court will be lighting and he can beat any player in the world.  All his partner has to do is "play along".

There was a surprise mini-victory in rowing where saravan Singh won a repechage (finding out the best losers) and gone back into quarter finals.  The attempt is really commendable specially when it is coming from a game which is not viewed, not followed, not known.

Todays I am expecting india to appear on medals table. Abhinav and Gagan are completing today in 10 m air rifle. Gagan who has done better than Abhinav everywhere else expect for the last Olympics will have a point to prove. I am expecting Gagan to finish on podium today more than Abhinav. If the lady luck smiles we can see even both of them.

Todays Menu:

Medal Hope :  Gagan Narang Abhinav Bindra

Wishful Medal Hope :  Men's Archery Individual.

 Arjun : Saina.

 Abhimanyu :  Paes, Bhupati, Bopanna. Jwala-Ashwini, Sumit Sangawan (boxing)

 Tough Task :  India has to pass the dutch challenge in hockey.







 













 

Day1- Saturday at games, monday for india

The Day1 of the Olympic was completely nostalgic for me. First it was a routine day for India. If you take average of India's performance of all the days of all the Olympics it would match with the overall results of the day1. It also appeared like a Monday for India, as some of the athletes looked to be suffering from the inertia or the hang over of the opening ceremony, while some were overwhelmed by the big stage.
   I didn't bother watching India taking on Lanka again. Whats the point!!! we have been taking on Lanka since Ramayan days and now even our Hanuman (Dara singh) is gone.  If we try to connect Ramayana to Olympics then I guess the long Jump (crossing the indian Ocean) and the Weight-lifting (sanjivani incident) world records are with Hanuman.
   The Archery world-record would have been with Arjun. Incidentally a la-Arjun feat was done at the Lords Cricket ground by the Italian Archery team. Yes the archery events are organized at Lords cricket grounds beneath  the grand stand. Every team has 3 players and every player hits 8 arrows. It was a gold-medal match, last arrow, the player had to hit the bulls-eye (X) to collect 10 points. The scene which is fabricated in all the sports theme hindi movies like Lagan or chak-de was happening in real life and that too in Olympics.  These are the situations the athletes dream to be in for all 4 years. Here the archer rose to the occasion hit the bulls eye and collected the gold. India team was in similar situation where a 10 was required to win the first round against Japan our archer hit 9 for a tie. Which is not bad given the immense pressure he would have.  Unfortunately we lost in the tie breaker. 

 One more reason I was feeling nostalgic and had a bit of de-ja-vu is the Door-Darshan's coverage of the games. It was classy like what used to be in the golden days of 80s and 90s.  When events where Indians were in fray like Badminton mixed double (Jwala-Diju), Woman doubles (Jwala-Ashwini) and Tennis womens doubles (Sania-Rashmi) are going on, Door-darshan was showing the sports which are very very popular in inda like cycling, women football and beach volleyball. I sincerely feel that beach volleyball should be aired on M-TV or channel-V.  India lost all these matches which weren't shown though. We have to give benefit of doubt assuming it was the first day and things would get settled down soon, however we also have to remember that there wont be many indians who would stay afloat in competition for many days.  I know the matches are tele-casted on star-network as well but I don't expect them to cover from India only angle.

On India's performance, both badminton doubles entries Jwala-Diju and Jwala-Ashwini lost their first marches. They aren't out of competition as there is round robin format for these events.  Sania-Rashmi also lost their knock-out match they are out of competition. P(arupalli) Kashyap played a "completely-in-command" game to overcome his Belgian Rival. The commentator on DoorDarshan during the entire match not even for once missed out "Parupalli" while mentioning Kashyap. "Aur ye parupalli kashyap net par aaye, aur ab parupalli Kashyap ne shandar smash maara". Thankfully inspite of being a sportsman from Hyderabad like Kashyap and Gopi, VVS Laxman doesn't play badminton. Else we would have had the pleasure of listening "Virarappu Venkat Sai Laxman ne ye shandar drop shot lagaya".

In Boxling the young Shiv Thapa (Bantom Weight)) fought well but lost. Vijender (middle weight) as expected moved ahead to pre-quarters.

Women's Weightlifting 48Kg which Indias S-Chanu was up against China-PRK,Japan dominance and couldn't finish in top-3.

In TT the Ankita Das lost in the first round however in a very commendable feat Soumyajeet Ghosh Stayed afloat for the next round.

The participation in shooting and Rowing remained just the participation. 



Today Menu

Wishful Medal hope: Women's Archery team. Heena Sindhu (Shooting 10m air pistol)

Arjuns:

                 Badminton - Saina,

Abhimanyus
                    Tennis : Paese-Vishnu
                                SomDev
                                 Bopannd-Mahesh
                    Badminton : Jwala-Diju
                    Boxing : Jai Bhagwan
                    TT : Soumyajit Ghosh

Formality : Rest. 











 











   


     

preamble London Olympics-india

With less than a week to go for the biggest sports extravaganza, it seems we don't care much for the games.  The country which feasts on any kind of mediocre game of bat and ball, does find the ultimate test of power, skills and stamina interesting. Why? May be because historically India hasn't been doing so great? There is certainly some truth in it.
 From 1988 Seoul onwards,  I have always been a very keep follower of the games.  I remember watching 1 hour coverage of the day's event on door-darshan then and hardly could we see an indian in that coverage.  Indian hockey was the only hope in 88 games and to qualify for semis India had to just draw against the Great Britain. GB hockey then wasn't a great force to reckon with but we lost 3-1 to them and GB went on to win the Gold. The same thing happened in 2000 Sydney where we had to win against Poland for semis and we were leading 1-0 till the 65th odd minute. In a pulsating game India lost it in last 5 minutes. We all were disappointed, the all 3 of us in a big hostel cafeteria.  The hostel which used to be jam-packed during the  india cricket's  down under tour of 99.  Out of the 8 ODIs and the 5 odd tests India couldn't win even a single match. This series earned Mr Agarkar the nick-name bombay duck. But still people were getting up at 5:00 am to watch the matches. But nobody turned up to watch the intesting hockey game. 
      That probably tells the sorry tale. It is the "chicken and egg". We don't watch because we don't win or we don't win because we don't care to watch?
   For a change 2006 brought some wave of change when Vijendar qualified in semis. Some comments by Bipasha also acted as catalyst and suddenly everybody developed interest in games. The commonwealth games hosting and decent performance in Asian games also kept the interest alive. Ironically the commonwealth games are more famous and still talked about because of the scams and not because India's good performance. Does anybody even know?
 Anyhow what to expect this year. Unfortunately even this year there is no sure medal hope. We came empty handed in 1984, 1988 and 1992. As in 1988 the hope was hockey, 1984 it was PT Usha who missed by a whisker 1992 was even a disappointing story. only Ramesh Krishnan and Leander Paes came close to winning a medal before losing out in the quarters.

If you draw parallels with Mahabharat then I do not see many Arjuns. Basically there are many Abhimanyus who will fight till the end and win hearts for sure if couldn't win medals. Mahabharata the epic, gives almost all kinds of characters to draw parallels with any situation.On of the early incident of Mahabharat is with Ganga and her 8 children.
  8 Vasus (some variety of God) were cursed in heaven and asked to do term on earth. They were born to ganga and Ganga relieved them from the term by throwing them into the river soon after they were born.

Every Olympics the fate of most of our contingent was  like that of the Vasus. Although here the players had the will and fighting spirit and they most of the time did the best they could some even broken the national records.  But sadly the end result which went on the lines of the Vasus, i.e. elimination on Day1.

Taking a Leaf from the software programming this year the event have already started on Day 0 before the opening ceremony with some ranking events in Archery. While the Korean team which has a legally blind player  broke the world record in the ranking event itself India finished the last (12th) in men and some 8th in Women. Ranking event will only decide whom you play against. So Indian Archery team will be up against 5th ranked Japan in pre-quarter finals. The top 4 made it directly to quarters.  This is a good new for Indian men team as now they will get more time to prepare for the individual round.

Todays (28 July) Menu Card

Events(India): Archery, Boxing, Badminton, TT, Tennis, WeightLifting, Rowing, Shooting

Wishful Medal hope : Shooting VIjay Kumar (10-meter Air rifle)

Arjuns :Vijendra singh (Boxing)

Abhimanyus:
Badminton : (Pkashyap, Jwala/Diju, Ashwini/Jwala),
Vijay Kumar (Shooting)
Tennis Doubles: The squad with "fighting spirit" :  Paes, Bhupati, Rohan and Saina.
Shiv Thapa (boxing),

Formality : Rowing, Weightlifting