The medal competitions started at the Tokyo Olympics. Indian players have started with mixed results. In men's hockey, India made a great start by defeating New Zealand 3-2. In the mixed event of archery, the pair of Deepika Kumari and Pravin Jadhav has reached the quarterfinals. At the same time, in women's 10m air rifle event in shooting, Elavenil Valarivan and Apurvi Chandela of India could not qualify for the final. India's Sushila Devi had to face defeat in Judo.
In men's hockey, India defeated New Zealand 3-2 in Pool A of the men's section. For India, captain Harmanpreet Singh (26th and 33rd minute) scored two goals and Rupinder Pal Singh (10th minute) scored one goal. For New Zealand, Ken Russell scored the first goal in the sixth minute and Stephen Jaynes (43rd minute) scored the second goal. This was the 8th encounter between India and New Zealand at the Olympic Games. In this, the Indian team has won for the 5th time.
China won the first gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. In the women's 10m air rifle event, China's Yang Qianan won the gold medal in the final with an Olympics record of 251.8 points. Russia's Anastasia Galasina won silver and Switzerland's Nina Christiansen won bronze. Indian shooters Elavenil Valarivan and Apurvi Chandela were eliminated in the qualification round itself.
The pair of Deepika and Pravin has managed to overcome the tough challenge of Chinese Chape in the pre-quarterfinals of the mixed archery event. The Indian pair lost the first set of the match 35-36. The second set was tied 38-38. Thus, after two sets, the Taipei pair were ahead 2-1. Winning a set in archery gets 2 points. At the same time, 1 point is given in the tie.
In the third set, the Indian pair won 40-35 to level the match at 3-3. The Indian pair at one point trailing 17-19 in the fourth set. After this, both Deepika and Pravin achieved a perfect 10 score to take India to 37. The Taipei archers could only score 17 points with the last two arrows. Thus the Indian pair won the set 37-36 and won the match 5-3. The Indian pair will face the Korean pair in the quarter-finals.
Deepika finished ninth in the women's singles ranking round with 663 points on the opening day of the Olympics on Friday. South Korea's archers were on the first three positions in the ranking round. Korea's Aan San came first with 680 points, Jang Minhye (677) second and Kang Zhi (675) third. Whereas, Deepika will face 54th-placed Bhutanese archer Karma in the pre-quarterfinals.
Among the archers in the men's ranking round, Praveen Jadhav was 31st with 656 points, Atanu Das was 35th with 653 points and Tarundeep Roy was 37th with 652 points. The men's team finished ninth in the event.
Indian players were disappointed in the women's qualification in 10m Air Rifle. Both Apurvi and Elavenil failed to qualify for the finals. Elavenil finished 16th with a score of 626.5 and Apurvi finished 36th with a score of 621.9.
In rowing, Indian pair of Arvind Singh and Arjun Jat Lal missed out on the semi-finals after finishing fifth in the heat of the men's doubles sculls lightweight. Indian rowers clocked 6.40.33 minutes in Heat 2. The Indian pair will now enter the repechage round and claim the bronze medal.
India's only hope in judo, Sushila Devi, lost the first match itself. She was easily defeated by Eva Cernowicz of Hungary in the round of 32 matches.
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