India enjoyed a memorable day on Friday at the Tokyo Olympics with Assam boxer Lovlina Borgohain promising herself and her country their second medal after Manipur weightlifter Mirabai Chanu opened the account for country on the first day of the games with a splendid silver medal.
Lovlina Borgohain created history on Friday when she defeated the former world champion, Chinese Taipei’s Nien-Chin Chen to qualify for the semifinals which will be played on July 30.
The 23-year-old boxer from Assam, Lovlina Borgohain emerged winner by a margin of 4-1 to make it to the final four of the event wherein she will face the present world champion, Busenaz Surmeneli from Turkey. The Turkish boxer had earlier beaten Ukraine’s Anna Lysenko in their quarter-final bout.
The contest between India’s Lovlina Borgohain and Turkey’s Busenaz Surmeneli will be played in the morning, 11:00am IST on Wednesday, August 4.
India’s biggest badminton star, PV Sindhu, who was a silver medal winner in the last Olympics held in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, defeated Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi by a margin of 21-13, 22-20 in the quarter-finals of the women’s category to make it to the semi-final and places are one victory away from an assured medal in the Tokyo Olympics.
The contest between Sindhu and Yamaguchi started with a comfortable victory in the first set for the Indian shuttler before the Japanese component opponent gathered herself and launched an incredible fightback. Yamaguchi matched the Indian superstar shot -for-shot and Sindhu was even forced to save a match point before winning the set 22-20.
The ace Indian shuttler will now face the winner in the contest between Thailand’s Ratchanok Intanon and Tzu-Ying Tai from the Chinese Taipei in the final-four clash.
In men’s hockey, India finished second in their group after a thumping 5-3 victory over the hosts Japan in their final group match. The victory ensures that the Indian hockey team enters the knockout round of the Tokyo Olympics hockey on the back of three consecutive victories, something that should give them tremendous confidence after their 1–7 defeat against Australia earlier in the tournament.
India took the lead in the 13th minute of the match with a goal from Harmanpreet Singh, while four minutes later, Simranjeet Singh and Gurjant Singh combined together to score the second goal with the latter providing the finish. Japan hit back with goals from Kenta.Tanaka and Kota Watanabe, but Nilakanta Sharma in the 34th minute provided the lead to India once again.
Surendra Kumar and Gurjant Singh went on to score one more goal each for India that gave them a lead of 5-2 at one stage, which was reduced to 5-3 at the end by Kenta Tanaka.
Earlier in the day, India had to deal with some disappointment after their star archer Deepika Kumari did qualify for the quarter-finals but she crashed out eventually in the next round. Ace shooter Manu Bhaker and Rahi Sarnobat also failed to make it to the 25 m pistol final after finishing fifth and 25th respectively.
India’s track and field athlete Avinash Sable also had to deal with some disappointment after you paid to make any mark in the qualification round of the men’s 3000m steeplechase.
Devarchit Varma is a cricket writer and journalist with an experience of more than a decade, having worked at Hindustan Times (newspaper) and CricketCountry (website). Along with covering international and domestic cricket, he has also interviewed several current and former top players such as Rohit Sharma, Steve Smith, Dale Steyn, Michael Hussey, Jacques Kallis, Brendon McCullum, Shane Watson, Lasith Malinga and many more. He has also worked in other beats as a journalist in Bollywood (Reliance BigOye) and IT (SiliconIndia) industries.
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