Rio Wrap: Lalita Makes Historic Cut but Sania & Rohan Lose Semis
Video | A wrap of all the Indian results from Day 8 of the Rio Olympics.
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Lalita Makes Historic Steeplechase Finale
India’s Lalita Babar has qualified for the women’s 3000m steeplechase final after finishing fourth in her qualifying heat.
The 2014 Incheon Asian Games bronze medalist clocked 9 minutes, 19.76 seconds in her heat to finish with the seventh-best time overall, also setting a new national record. In fact, Lalita clipped nearly seven seconds off the national mark that was set by Sudha Singh (9:26.55) this May. Sudha herself though failed to make the final.
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Nirmala Fails to Qualify for 400m Semifinals
India’s Nirmala Sheoran failed to qualify for the semifinals of the women’s 400 metre event on Saturday. The Haryana athlete clocked 53.03 seconds in the Round 1 Heat 1 event at the Olympic Stadium, to be placed sixth among seven athletes in her heat.
She finished 44th among 57 athletes in the overall standings. The first two in each of the eight heats and the next eight fastest runners advance to the semifinals, enabling 24 athletes to go through.
Rower Dattu Finishes 15th
Baban Bhokanal, who was already out of the medal reckoning, has finished 15th in overall rankings of the men’s single sculls event in Rio.
The armyman stood first in the final ranking race with a time of 6:54.96, which was best among the four races he participated in the Games. Bhokanal finished ahead of five other competitors -- Hungary’s Bendeguz Molnar Petervari, Rosso Brian of Argentina, Memo of Indonesia, Korea’s Kim Dongyong and Jhonatan Esquivel of Uruguay.
Bhokanal, whose ailing mother is an Intensive Care Unit of a hospital in India, had clocked 7:21.67s in the Heats.
Women’s Hockey Team Thrashed Again
The Indian women’s hockey team suffered a humiliating 0-5 loss against higher-ranked Argentina in their final Pool B fixture to end their campaign at the Rio Olympics.
With this loss, India finished their six-team Pool B campaign on a disappointing note after returning to women’s Olympic hockey since their last appearance in 1980.
The Indian eves were beaten comprehensively by Australia (1-6), Great Britain (0-3) and USA (0-3) in the last three matches. They had drawn their opening match against Japan 2-2.
Shooter Gurpreet Out in Qualifiers
Indian shooter Gurpreet Singh failed to qualify for the final round of the men’s 25 metre Rapid Fire Pistol event at the Rio Olympics.
Gurpreet finished seventh, just outside the six qualifying spots, with a cumulative 581 points with 24 inner 10s at the Olympic Shooting Centre.
Shooter Mairaj Ahmad Fails in Skeet Semis
Indian shooter Mairaj Ahmad Khan crashed out of men’s Skeet qualification round after finishing ninth following a shoot-off for the fifth and sixth place.
Mairaj, who shot a total of 121 along with four other shooters, required a shoot-off for the final two spots to reach the semi-finals at the Olympic Shooting Centre. The 40-year-old found himself out of the race after managing to shoot a +3 to drop to the ninth place.
Jwala, Ashwini Out Without a Win
Already out of medal contention, India’s women’s doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa suffered their third successive loss in their final Group match, against Thailand’s Supajirakul Puttita and Taerattanachai Sapsiree.
Playing their second Olympics after London Games, Jwala and Ashwini lost 17-21 15-21 in a women’s doubles match to finish their proceedings with a hat-trick of defeats. The 2010 Commonwealth Games champions had defeated the World No 16 Thai pair twice this year at the Syed Modi Grand Prix Gold and Uber Cup but all that didn’t matter as their fight lasted only 44 minutes at the Riocentre - Pavillion 4 here.
Mirza and Bopanna Lose Semi-Final, Settle For Bronze Medal Match
India’s Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna went down 6-2, 2-6, 3-10 against Venus Williams and Rajeev Ram in the semi-final of the mixed doubles event. Mirza and Bopanna, who were cruising to the gold medal match after clinching the first set with ease, had to settle for a bronze medal match after the loss.
The Indian pair completely dominated the first set. They didn’t give a single break point chance to their opponents and converted two out of three break points themselves and won the set 6-2.
But in the second set, Mirza and Bopanna seemed to have lost their touched. They got broken twice and lost the set 2-6.
In the super tie-break, Venus Williams and Rajeev Ram carried forward their momentum from the second set and clinched the tiebreak 10-3.
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Shuttlers Attri, Reddy Win Their Final Group Match
Indian shuttlers Manu Attri and Sumeeth Reddy defeated Hiroyuki Endo and K Hayakawa of Japan in straight games in their final Group match of the men’s doubles competition at the Rio Olympics.
The Indians fought off a spirited challenge by the Japanese duo and won the match 23-21, 21-11 at the Riocentro Pavilion 4 on Saturday.
But, the doubles pair were already out of the competition since they lost their first two group matches.
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