India had a mixed day at the Rio Olympics yesterday with the men’s hockey team and rower Dattu Baban Bhokanal tasting success while the women shooters and paddlers and the tennis duo of Leander Paes and Bopanna proved to be a disappointment.
India opened their men’s hockey campaign with a morale boosting 3-2 win against Ireland in their opening pool encounter.
Rupinder Pal Singh (27th and 49th minutes) scored a brace while VR Raghunath (15th) opened the scoring for the eight-time gold medallists. John Jermyn (45th) and Conor Harte (55th) reduced the margin for the Irishmen in the Pool B match. India’s next match is against two-time defending champions Germany tomorrow.
Earlier in the day, Bhokanal produced a pleasant surprise in the men’s single sculls event as he reached the quarter-finals after finishing third in his heat. In the first heat of the day, the 25-year-old from the Indian Army finished the 2000m race in seven minutes and 21.67 seconds at the Lagoa Stadium here.
The Maharashtra lad is the sole Indian to have qualified for the rowing events. He was in second place for the first 500 metres of the race, but started to lag behind once Juan Carlos of Mexico in the second lane picked up pace around the 700m mark.
Cuba’s Angel Fournier Rodriguez finished first clocking 7:06.89 followed by Carlos (7:08.27).
But Indian fans had to taste disappointment in the other events of the day. At the shooting ranges, Apurvi Chandela and Ayonika Paul crashed out after losing in the quarter-finals of the women’s 10-metre air rifle event.
Apurvi was placed in 34th position with a combined score of 411.6 while Ayonika was 43rd with 407.0 among 51 shooters. China’s Du Li entered the quarter-finals, bagging the top spot with a score of 420.7, setting a new Olympic record at the event. Germany’s Barbara Engleder took the second spot with 420.3 while Iran’s Elaheh Ahmadi was third with 417.8.
Apart from the top three, a Russian, two Americans, a Croatian and another Chinese shooter completed the top eight line-up.
“I don’t know what happened, my mind has totally gone blank,” Apurvi told IANS after the event. “Of course when I came in this morning, I expected to win. Who doesn’t,” a visibly crestfallen Chandela said before proceeding to see the finals of the competition with her physio Nikhil Ajit Latey, which was won by Virginia Thrasher of the US with a score of 208.
Apurvi had won the gold medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Her other colleague Ayonika had won the silver at the competition. Paul, who too watched the finals from the rear gallery, did not want to comment.
Medal hope Jitu Rai too has a heart-breaking day as he finished eighth in the men’s 10-metre Air Pistol event.
Jitu produced a string of poor shots for a total score of 78.7 and was the first to be eliminated from the eight-man final.
In table tennis, Mouma Das crashed out in the first round of women’s singles after a rather one-sided 2-11, 7-11, 7-11, 3-11 loss to Daniela Monteiro Dodean of Romania.

Hockey grapples with Olympics ‘wake up call’
With its future as Olympic sport under scrutiny, there are more than just medals at stake for hockey players at the Rio Games and the pressure is on to produce a crowd-pleasing tournament, cementing their place in the top flight of world competition.
 Despite ticket sales of 630,000 making it the third biggest-selling event at the 2012 Games in London, hockey narrowly avoided being dropped from the Olympic roster in 2013 over concerns that organisers were not doing enough to engage new fans.
 “There was a perception that we were not a fan-focused sport,” said Kelly Fairweather, chief executive of the International Hockey Federation (FIH). “To be honest, we were shocked... It was a bit of a wake-up call.”
 The FIH has responded by introducing a number of changes at the Rio Games. Those include a move to 15-minute quarters and scheduling more time for television replays and analysis to showcase players’ virtuoso skills with a ball moving at more than 160 kilometres an hour.
 For the first time in Olympic competition, the Rio hockey tournament will also feature quarter-finals, making it the last team sport to adopt the format at the Games. Fairweather said he hoped the move would give fans the thrills and excitement of an extended knock-out competition while raising the stakes for teams who now have to finish in the top four of each group, leaving little room for error in the early stages.