Lovelina Borgohain shows her mettle and class with her height and long reach
Although Indian Athletes faced mixed fortunes overall, there were some .scintillating bright sparks at the Tokyo Olympics on Monday and Tuesday.
BOXING: Twenty-three-year-old Indian boxer Lovelina Borgohain showed her mettle and class on Tuesday, beating her German opponent Nadine Apetz in the 69 kg, pre-quarter-final round of the Women’s Boxing on Tuesday.
Two-time World Championships bronze medallist, Lovelina took full advantage of her height and long reach to land some telling punches on Nadine to win the bout 3-2. If she now beats Chinese Nien-Chin in the Quarter final round, she is assured of an Olympic bronze.
HOCKEY: In the men’s hockey match between India and Spain, India beat Spain 3-0 on Tuesday. The goals were scored by Simranjeet Pal Singh in the 14th minute and Rupinder Pal Singh in the 15th and 51 st minute. India were drubbed in their last match by Australia 7-1.’
The India women’s hockey team lost to Germany (0-2) in their Pool A encounter on Monday.
FENCING: In Fencing (sabre category), Bhavani Devi caught the fancy and imagination of everyone with her lithe and agile swordplay on Tuesday.
In her first-round duel on Tuesday, the 27-year-old fencer from Chennai, easily beat her Tunisian opponent, Nadia Ben Azizi 15-3. But in her second-round duel the same day, the doughty Bhavani proved no match for a far superior, fourth-seeded Frenchwoman Manon Brunet, and lost the contest 15-2.
Impressed with her performance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent her a congratulatory message saying: “You are an inspiration for all of us”.
Only a couple of weeks earlier, Bhavani had shown better form and beaten Brunet in a training session in France.
The loss and exit from the games have not dampened the spirit of this gritty girl, who is the only Indian on the international fencing circuit. She plans to get back to her training base in Italy to prepare for the next Olympics.
Impressed with her performance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent her a congratulatory message saying: “You are an inspiration for all of us”.
SHOOTING: Indian shooters continued to experience a barren run on both Monday and Tuesday. In the Skeet shooting event (Monday), Angad, Vir Singh Bajwa and Mairaj Khan drew a blank and failed to advance. In the 10-metre air pistol event (Tuesday), again, it was the same old story.
TABLE-TENNIS: World Number 2 T-T champion and Olympic gold medalist at Rio De Janeiro (2016), Ma Long of China, made short work of Sharath Kamal of
India, beating him 11-7, 8-11, 13-11, 11-4 and 11-2. On Tuesday.
On Monday, Sharath had put up a good show beating Tiago Apolonia of Portugal 2-11, 11-8, 11-5, 9-11, 11-6, 11-0.
TENNIS: In Tennis Sumir Nagal bowed out of the Olympics on Monday, losing to Russian World Number 2 Danlil Medvedev 6-2, 6-1 in just 66 minutes.