August 18, 2004
 

Yesterday was a pretty historic day in Indian Olympic history. It was the first time in 104 years that India won an individual medal higher than a bronze. Major Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore got the silver (by a slim margin of a point) in the double trap shooting competition. The accolades have started pouring in for him. I'm fairly sure the IOA will piggyback on his success and claim that the performance at this Olympics has been far better than in the previous ones. People like Suresh Kalmadi or Randhir Singh are never held accountable, invariably its the athletes who are at the wrong end of the bargain.

The hockey team managed to claw back from the jaws of defeat to win 4-2 against South Africa, with 2 goals being scored in the last couple of minutes. With Argentina drawing against Australia, and India having games against both those sides, all the games are essentially must-win games. The defence is just far too weak and was really embarassing against Holland.

The tennis duo of Paes and Bhupathi won fairly easily against the Swiss pair of Federer and Allegro. The first set was a display of superb doubles tennis with great anticipation being shown by Paes and Bhupathi. In the second set, Federer and Allegro raised their game, especially Allegro who tried to do justice to his name, and put the Indian pair under a fair amount of pressure. But ultimately, the fact that doubles is almost always greater than the sum of the parts meant that Paes and Bhupathi had enough resources and skill to win the tiebreaker. They did commit a fair share of unforced errors, especially Bhupathi and they really have to cut out these errors against the more established doubles pairings they will start coming up against now.

Labels: kalmadi, olympics