Paris Olympics 2024 Day 7 Roundup: The biggest Mahakumbh of sports, the Olympic Games, is being held in Paris this time. The seventh day (2 August) of Paris Olympics 2024 was good for India. Indian players performed brilliantly on Friday. In shooting, star shooter Manu Bhaker managed to reach the finals of Women’s 25 meter pistol. Manu has already won two medals in Paris Olympics and now she would like to make a grand hat-trick by winning a medal in this event.
Lakshya Sen gave a memorable performance in badminton. The men’s hockey team defeated Australia in the Olympic Games after 52 years. However, Ankita Bhakat and Dheeraj Bommadevara missed out on winning medals in archery. Let us know in which sports the Indian players won on the seventh day and in which events they faced disappointment…
One step away from an Olympic medal 🏅🤩#Cheer4Bharat & catch Lakshya Sen in the semifinals, LIVE on #Sports18 & stream FREE on #JioCinema.#OlympicsOnJioCinema #OlympicsOnSports18 #JioCinemaSports#Badminton #Olympics #Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/moiGkmLC5x
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Shooting: Manu Bhaker moved towards an unprecedented third medal for India at the Paris Olympic Games and qualified for the final of the shooting 25m women’s pistol event, but Isha Singh bowed out of the competition. Anantjit Singh Naruka is ranked 26th among 30 shooters after a poor start on the first day of men’s skeet qualification. After winning the bronze medal in the individual 10 meter air pistol at the Paris Games, Manu along with Sarabjot Singh also won the bronze medal in the mixed team category. She became the first Indian to win two medals in the same Olympics.
Manu scored a total of 590 points with 294 points in precision and 296 points in rapid and entered the finals by securing second place in the qualification. Manu scored 97, 98 and 99 points respectively in three series of 10-10 marks in the precision round. In the rapid round, he scored 100, 98 and 98 marks in three series. Isha stood 18th with 291 points in precision and 290 points in rapid, scoring a total of 581 points and could not make it to the final among eight shooters. After scoring 95 and 96 points in the first two series of precision, she made a strong comeback with 100 points, but could only score 97, 96 and 97 points in the rapid round. The final of this event will be played today (3 August).
Badminton: Indian badminton player Lakshya Sen created history. Lakshya reached the semi-finals of men’s singles. Lakshya defeated Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei 19-21, 21-15, 21-12. Lakshya is the first Indian male shuttler to reach the semi-finals of this event. Lakshya lost the first game, but made a comeback in the second. Then he secured a place in the semi-finals by winning the decisive game. Tian could not break Lakshya’s rapid smashes and backhand shots. Lakshya will play its semi-final match on 4th August.
Hockey: On the basis of two goals by captain Harmanpreet Singh and amazing goalkeeping by PR Sreejesh, India defeated Australia in the Olympics after 52 years and registered a 3-2 victory over this great rival in the last group match. India last defeated Australia in men’s hockey at the Olympics in the 1972 Munich Games. At the same time, in the Sydney Olympics 2000, the group match was a 2-2 draw with Australia. Australia had registered a 7-1 victory over India in the group match in Tokyo Olympics 2021.
While Sreejesh truly acted like a ‘wall’ and saved countless goals for Tokyo Olympics bronze medalist India, Harmanpreet, who has been scoring goals in every match, maintained that trend. At the same time, defender Jarmanpreet Singh and forward Abhishek, playing the Olympics for the first time, played hockey without any fear of being distracted by the influence of the opponent. For India, Abhishek scored in the 12th, Harmanpreet scored in the 13th and 32nd minutes. For Australia, Craig Thomas scored in the 25th and Blake Govers scored in the 55th minute.
This victory must have healed the wounds of the Indian fans which they suffered after the 8-0 defeat in the Delhi Commonwealth Games 2010 final and 7-0 defeat in the Birmingham Commonwealth Games final. Before this match, India had won only three out of 11 matches against Australia in the Olympics (1960 Rome quarter-final, 1964 Tokyo semi-final and 1972 Munich group match), while Australia had won six and played two draws. The Indian team finished second behind Belgium in the pool stage with three wins, one draw and one loss and will face Great Britain in the quarter-finals.
Archery: India’s Dheeraj Bommadevra and Ankita Bhakat missed a medal in mixed doubles archery on Friday, being defeated 6-2 by America’s pair of Cassie Kaufhold and Brady Ellison in the bronze medal match. The fifth seeded pair of Dheeraj and Ankita, despite winning the first set in the semi-finals, reached the bronze medal match after losing 2-6 to the top seeded South Korean pair of Kim Woojin and Lim Sihyeon.
They did not have a good start against the American pair, in which they lost the first two sets. Indian archers raised hopes of a comeback by winning the third set, but the pair of Casey and Brady did not give them any chance and won the bronze medal 38-37, 37-35, 34-38, 37-35. Earlier, Dheeraj and Ankita had to face defeat from the South Korean pair by 38-36, 35-38, 36-38, 38-39. Dheeraj and Ankita had defeated Spain’s 13th seeded pair of Pablo Gonzales and Ilia Canales 5-3 in the quarter-finals. The Indian pair won 38-37, 38-38, 36-37, 37-36.
Judo: Indian judo player Tulika Mann was eliminated in the first round of the women’s over 78 kg event on Friday with a defeat against London Olympics champion Idelise Ortiz of Cuba. With this the Indian challenge in this event ended. 22-year-old Tulika from Delhi, the 2022 Commonwealth Games silver medalist, had to face a 0-10 ippon defeat against the Cuban player. The Cuban player has four Olympic medals to her name, which include one gold, two silver and one bronze medal. Tulika could last only 28 seconds against Ortiz. Tulika’s defeat ended India’s campaign in judo as she was the only player to represent India in the event at the Paris Games.
Rowing: Balraj Panwar finished fifth in Final D on Friday and ended his campaign with 23rd place in the men’s single sculls event of the Paris Olympic Games. 25-year-old Balraj from Haryana clocked 7 minutes 2.37 seconds in Final D, which is his best performance in the current Games. This was not the medal round though. Balraj, India’s only participant in the sailing event of the Paris Olympics, finished fifth in the quarter heat race. Balraj made it to the quarter-finals by finishing second in the repechage round race on Sunday. On Saturday, he reached the repechage by finishing fourth in the first round heat.
Golf: Shubhankar Sharma and Gaganjeet Bhullar were ranked 25th and 52nd respectively after the first two rounds. Both Shubhankar and Gaganjeet scored 2 under 69 in the second round. Shubhankar made a combined score of 3 under 139 in both the rounds, while Gaganjeet made a score of 2 over 144. Now they will play in the third round, which will start on August 3 at 12:30 pm.
Sail sailing: Netra Kumanan is participating in the women’s dinghy event of sailing. Netra’s fourth race was postponed due to bad weather. This race will be held on 3, 4 and 5 i.e. 3rd August. Currently Netra is at 11th place with 48 points. On the other hand, in the men’s dinghy event in sailing, India’s Vishnu Saravanan finished 20th and 19th in his third and fourth races respectively. Vishnu is currently at 22nd position with 83 points. Their 5th and 6th race will be held on 3rd August at 3:50 pm Indian time.
Athletics: India’s Parul Chaudhary took a time of 15:10.68 in the women’s 5000 meters race and stood 14th in Heat-2. Parul missed out on making it to the finals. Whereas Ankita Dhyani stood 20th in Heat-1 with a time of 16:19.38. Ankita also could not reach the final. Eight players each from both the heats qualified for the final. On the other hand, Tajinder Pal could not qualify for the final in the men’s shot put event.