Paris: India endured one of its most tumultuous and disappointing days in the ongoing Olympic Games here after Vinesh Phogat lost a sure-shot medal owing to disqualification, fellow wrestler Antim Panghal found herself in a soup following a disciplinary breach and celebrated weightlifter Mirabai Chanu ended medal-less.
All eyes of Neeraj Chopra
Adding to the woes was the consistently poor show by the country’s track-and-field contingent which seems to be banking solely on defending javelin throw champion Neeraj Chopra to deliver a medal.
Chopra will aim for a historic second Olympic gold on Thursday evening after topping the qualification on Tuesday.
The country’s medal tally remained at three, all bronze secured by the shooters.
Vinesh Phogat’s tragic exit
The biggest heartbreak of the day was Vinesh, who was disqualified ahead of her summit clash against American Sarah Ann Hildebrandt after being found 100gm overweight at the morning weigh-in.
The devastated 29-year-old has appealed against the decision and demanded that she be considered for a joint silver after being replaced in the final by Cuba’s Yusneylis Guzman Lopez, who lost to her in the semifinals.
Lopez lost to Hildebrandt in the final.
Mirabai Chanu stood fourth
Tokyo Olympics silver-medallist Mirabai’s fourth-place finish in the 49kg division was another dampener as she failed to be anywhere close to her best in the field.
Mirabai lifted a total of 199kg (88kg+111kg) at the South Paris Arena, which was 3kg less than what she heaved at the Tokyo Olympics — 202 kg for a silver medal.
She could manage only three valid lifts out of six attempts and two of these came in the clean and jerk section.
If the poor performance was not enough, Antim Panghal ensured that the country had reasons to feel embarrassed too.
Panghal and her entire entourage is being flown back from Paris after the young wrestler handed her official accreditation card to her sister who was caught by security while leaving the Games Village.
Panghal had crashed out of the Games after losing her opening bout in the women’s 53kg category during the day.
“The Indian Olympic Association has decided to fly wrestler Antim and her support staff back after a disciplinary breach was brought to IOA’s notice by the French authorities,” an IOA statement said.
According to a source, Panghal was at the hotel where her coach Bhagat Singh and sparring partner Vikas, who is actually her coach, were staying.
She asked her sister to go to the Games Village and come back with some of her belongings.
“Her sister was caught for impersonation and was taken to a police station to record her statement,” said the source.
The 19-year-old U20 world champion was also called by police to record her statement.
If that was not enough, her personal support staff — Vikas and Bhagat — travelled in an inebriated state in a taxi and refused to pay the driver, who then called the police.
Disappointment in track and field
Avinash Sable failed to keep pace with the best in the business as he finished 11th in the men’s 3000m steeplechase final race here.
The 29-year-old Sable clocked 8 minutes 14.18 seconds while crossing the finish line after running in the lead briefly in the dramatic race. Sable had recently broken his own national record with a time of 8:09.91 seconds at the Paris Diamond League.
He has been training abroad for a long time in preparation for the Paris Games on funding from the government.
Triple jumpers Praveen Chitravel and Abdulla Aboobacker also disappointed by failing to reach the finals after producing disappointing performances of 16.25m and 16.49m respectively.
Chitravel finished a poor 27th and Abdulla ended up at 21st out of 32 competitors.
Chitravel holds the national record of 17.37m while Aboobacker has a personal best of 17.19m.
National record holder 100m hurdler Jyothi Yarraji also failed to book an automatic semifinal spot after finishing seventh with a below-par time in her round one heat race .
The Olympic debutant, who is the first Indian to compete in 100m hurdles in the Games, clocked 13.16 seconds in heat number four to finish 35th overall out of 40 total runners.
The 24-year-old’s national record stands at 12.78 seconds.
Experienced Indian javelin thrower Annu Rani too failed to impress on the global stage as she made a qualification round exit with an extremely poor performance.
The 31-year-old national record holder opened her event with 55.81m and could not improve upon that mark in her next two attempts, which measured 53.22m and 53.55m, to finish at 15th among 16 competitors in Group A and 26th overall.
TT campaign over
India’s table tennis campaign came to an end after the women’s team of Manika batra, Sreeja Akula and Archana Kamath lost to Germany in the quarterfinals. The Indian team was bested 1-3 by the Germans.
Medal hopes from hockey
The men’s hockey team will take on Spain in the bronze medal playoff on Thursday. The challenge for the Indians would be to shake off the disappointment of their heartbreaking 2-3 loss to Germany in the semifinals.
