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Day 7 at Rio: Phelps misses gold, Indians edging closer to medals

Sahil Bhalla | Updated on: 13 August 2016, 16:39 IST

With the athletics programme getting underway at the Rio Olympics and some stunning results in the swimming pool, there was a lot to talk about on Day 7.

While some Indians took themselves and the country to the cusp of the elusive Olympic medal, Michael Phelps was defeated, Rafael Nadal won gold and a world record was obliterated.

In other news, Games organisers are trying to save face over empty seats, and more athletes have been sent home for doping.

First up, the Indians:

01
Atanu Das (archery)

Having impressed in the Round of 64 and Round of 32, Das took to the Sambódromo for his Round of 16 match against South Korea's Lee Seungyun. Das went down 6-4 in a tightly fought contest. He lost out in the fourth round against the world no. 8 by not scoring any 10s. The 21-year-old Korean made the quarters after the fifth set was tied 28-28. The last Indian male archer to make the pre-quarterfinals was Satya Dev Prasad at Athens in 2004.

02
Gagan Narang and Chain Singh (shooting)

Another day, another disappointing result for Indians at the shooting range. In the 50m rifle prone event, Gagan Narang and Chain Singh failed to qualify for the finals. Narang finished in 13th position with a score of 623.1 points. Singh finished a lowly 36th among 47 shooters with a score of 619.6. Only the top eight advanced.

Narang had put up a strong performance, faltering only in the final part of qualifying. With five shots to go, he was placed seventh, but with poor final shots, he crashed out.

Both Narang and Singh will have one more chance to bring home a medal when they compete in the 50m rifle 3 position event on Sunday.

03
Mairaj Ahmad Khan and Gurpreet Singh (shooting)

In different events, Khan and Singh finished the first day of their two-day qualifying rounds in respective 10th positions.

Khan posted a score of 72/75 shots in the men's skeet event, and needs to keep up the momentum going over the final two rounds of qualifying on Day 2 as only six shooters will qualify for the semi-finals.

In the 25m rapid-fire pistol event, Singh was placed 10th with a total score of 289. He began with a perfect score of 100 in the first series and a 99 in the second, only to falter in the third with a 90.

This qualifying also takes place over today days. Three series of 10 shots each are fired on each day, with the top six shooters making the final.

04
Jwala Gutta, Ashwini Ponnappa, Manu Attri and Sumeeth Reddy (badminton)

India's poor run in both the men's and women's doubles events in badminton continued on 12 August. Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa played a hard-fought match, only to lose it 21-16, 16-21, 21-17 to Netherlands' Eefie Muskens and Selena Piek. The Indian pair lost their first group stage match in straight sets to top seeds Ayaka Takahashi and Misaki Matsutomo. They now bow out of the tournament.

As for the men, Manu Attri and Sumeeth Reddy continued their poor showing, slumping to their second consecutive loss in the group stages. In their second match, they lost in straight sets to China's Chai Biao and Hong Wei 21-13, 21-15. With two losses, the Indians are out of contention for a place in the knockout rounds.

05
SSP Chawrasia and Anirban Lahiri (golf)

If a par score isn't good enough in the men's individual golf event at the Rio Olympics, then anything over that is definitely not. SSP Chawrasia recovered to post his second successive score round of level-par 71, taking his total to level-par 142. Chawrasia is now tied-30th.

The other Indian golfer, Anirban Lahiri, endured a worse day at the Games. Between the par-three 4th and the par-three 8th, Lahiri scored four bogeys. Slipping further, Lahiri finished with a 2-over 73. His total score is up to 5-over 147. This is good enough only for tied 51st.

It seems as though both Indians have relatively no chance of making it to the podium in the individual event.

06
Indian men's hockey team

Having already qualified for the knockouts, India seemed to take the foot off the pedal just a little. A few errors cost them a win against low-ranked opponents Canada. The match finished in a 2-2 draw.

With India finishing fourth in Group B, they will now be taking on Belgium, who topped Group A, in the quarter-finals. A win against Canada would have meant India finishing in third and getting a relatively less-fancied opponents in the quarter-finals.

07
Sania Mirza-Rohan Bopanna (tennis)

For those who stayed up well past midnight, it was a match to remember as Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna put on a show for the ages.

Playing against a tired Andy Murray and his partner Heather Watson, Bopanna's serve was broken early on and the Indians were trailing 2-0. Thereafter, the Indians didn't put a foot wrong and wrapped up the match in straight sets 6-4, 6-4, in just 67 minutes against the Britons.

The Indian duo is now one win away from a medal, and will take on USA's Venus Williams and Rajeev Ram on Saturday.

India's lone tennis medal came way back in 1996, when Leander Paes won a singles bronze in Atlanta.

08
Vikas Krishan (boxing)

Right after Mirza and Bopanna finished their match, all eyes turned to the boxing ring and Vikas Krishan. He put up a brilliant performance against Turkey's Onder Sipal to win by unanimous decision and advance to the quarter-finals.

Krishan is now one win away from a guaranteed medal, since boxing gives out bronze medals to both losing semi-finalists.

Vikas will face Bektemir Melikuziev of Uzbekistan. Melikuziev had beaten the Indian in the final of the 2015 Asian Championships.

09
Manish Singh Rawat, Gurmeet Singh and Krishnan Ganapathi (20km race walk)

In the 20km race walk event, three Indians - Manish Singh Rawat, Gurmeet Singh and Krishnan Ganapathi - were in the fray. While Singh and Ganapathi were disqualified after being given three warnings, Rawat finished the race in a creditable 13th position out of 74 competitors. Eleven walkers were disqualified for rule violations, including the two Indians.

10
Muhammad Anas (400m)

With the athletics competitions getting underway, and India sending their largest-ever contingent in track and field, spirits were high. Competing in the 400m event, Muhammad Anas clocked in at 45.95s to finish sixth in his heat. Anas finished 31st overall and failed to qualify for the semi-finals.

11
Ankit Sharma (long jump)

After two foul jumps in his first two attempts, Ankit Sharma jumped 7.67m in his third and final attempt. Sharma finished 24th overall and did not progress in the event.

12
Dutee Chand (100m)

Dutee Chand put up a spirited performance to finish seventh in her heat and 50th overall in the women's 100m event. Chand clocked in 11.69s to finish her heat. She is the first Indian woman to represent the country in the event in 36 years. Unfortunately, a 50th place finish was well off the mark and she didn't qualify for the semi-finals.

13
Jinson Johnson (800m)

In the men's 800m race, Jinson Johnson of India finished fifth in his heat with a timing of 1 minute 47.27s to finish 25th out of 50 competitors. During his heat, Johnson was hit on the legs by a fellow runner and could never recover to post a timing good enough to qualify for the semi-finals.

Last month, at the Indian Grand Prix, Johnson had set a time of 1 minute 45.98s, the second fastest ever by an Indian. Unfortunately, he couldn't match up to this at the Rio Olympics.

14
Manpreet Kaur (shot put)

India's lone female shot-putter, Manpreet Kaur, finished a lowly 23rd out of 35 competitors on Friday. Her best throw of 17.06m was well below her national record of 17.96m. She finished 13th in Group B.

Let's now move on to what else happened at the Rio Olympics:

15
Michael Phelps just got a Schooling

Michael Phelps failed to win gold number 23 in his final individual event before retirement. The 31-year-old swimmer's final race, the 100m butterfly, ended in a three-way tie for the silver medal.

Joseph Schooling of Singapore won the race with an Olympic record timing of 50.39 seconds. Phelps's last race will be the men's 4x100 freestyle relay where he has a chance to win gold number 23 and Olympic medal number 28.

16
Joseph Schooling (swimming)

Joseph Schooling has done it! He beat Phelps to win Singapore's first ever medal in swimming, and that too, a gold medal.

Phelps, South African Chad le Clos and Hungarian Laszlo Cseh finished in a three-way tie for silver with a timing of 51.14 seconds. This meant that there was no bronze!

17
Katinka Hosszu (swimming)

Another race, another upset. The last few races of the swimming events have been unpredictable.

Maya DiRado of the United States won the women's 200m backstroke in her final race before retirement. She upset Katinka Hosszu of Hungary to win by 0.06 seconds. DiRado finished the race in 2 minutes 5.99 seconds. Hosszu adds a silver to her collection of three gold medals.

DiRado is leaving the sport. She's now taking up a management consultancy job.

18
Katie Ledecky (swimming)

No other woman has dominated the swimming events like Katie Ledecky. On Saturday, competing in the 800m freestyle, she demolished her own world record to win by more than a body's length. With this win, Ledecky became the first woman since American Debbie Meyer in 1968, to sweep the 200m, 400m and 800m freestyle events.

"I just wanted to push myself and see what I could do," Ledecky said. "It was my last Olympic race here in Rio. The Olympics is the pinnacle of our sport and I have to wait four more years to have that moment again, so I wanted the last one to be special." At just 19 years of age, if Ledecky keeps up this form, she could dominate with even more force come Tokyo 2020.

19
USA women's football team

What a shocker of a result! The USA women's football team - winners of four gold medals from five consecutive finals ever since the event was introduced at the Olympics - was dumped out in a penalty shootout by Sweden.

The Swedes are led by coach Pia Sundhage, who had led the USA to gold at the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Olympics.

20
Rafael Nadal (tennis)

Spanish legend Rafael Nadal is on course for the double in tennis after he and partner Marc Lopez defeated Romanian duo Florin Mergea and Horia Tecau in a thrilling three-set contest that lasted two hours and 26 minutes.

Nadal and Lopez overcame Mergea and Tecau 6-2, 3-6, 6-4.

Nadal will face Argentinian Juan Martin del Potro in the singles semi-finals.

21
10,000m world record

A new world record was set in the 10,000m race. Ethiopia's Almaz Ayana set the world alight with a timing of 29 minutes 17.45 seconds, beating the old record by a whopping 14.33 seconds, set in 1993 by China's Wang Junxia.

22
Kamia Yousufi and Kariman Abuljadayel (100m)

Afghanistan's Kamia Yousufi and Saudi Arabia's Kariman Abuljadayel made history as the first sprinters in the 100m to compete in a full-body kit and hijab. Abuljadayel finished seventh in her heat while Yousufi was last.

23
Kim Rhode (shooting)

Kim Rhode captured a historic bronze in women's skeet to become the first woman and second athlete overall to earn an individual medal in six straight Olympic Games. The other athlete to have achieved this feat - Italian luger Armin Zoeggeler.

24
Sir Bradley Wiggins (cycling)

Sir Bradley Wiggins has become Britain's most successful Olympian of all time. Wiggins and the cycling pursuit team set a world record to beat Australia. Wiggins now has five gold, one silver and two bronze medals, surpassing fellow cyclist Sir Chris Hoy's tally of seven.

The 36-year-old Wiggins, along with Ed Clancy, Owain Doull and Steven Burke, completed the 4km race in three minutes 50.265 seconds.

25
Anthony Ervin (swimming)

Winning at the age of 35 is no mean feat. That's exactly what Anthony Ervin of the United Stated did in the pool on Friday. In swimming's fastest race, the 50m freestyle - Ervin finished with a timing of 21.40 seconds.

Ervin had quit the sport after the Sydney Olympics in 2000; he returned years later at the London Olympics in 2012. Now, at 35 years of age, he is the oldest Olympic swimming champion.

26
More athletes doping

Since reports came out that Chen Xinyi failed a dope test, two more athletes have been caught. Xinyi became the first swimmer to be banned during an Olympics since 1992. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) declared Polish weightlifter Tomasz Zielinski and Bulgarian 3,000m steeplechaser Silvia Danekova ineligible to compete, and excluded them from the Games for testing positive.

27
Organisers 'not disappointed' by crowds

As the athletics events began in the Estadio Olimpico, Rio Olympics organisers were "not disappointed" by the empty seats on show. For the evening session, the stadium was less than a fifth full.

Edited by Shreyas Sharma

More in Catch

Day 6 at Rio: Indian athletes do their job but sports minister Vijay Goel embarrasses

Day 5 at Rio: 14 talking points as world gets first 'independent' champion

Day 4 at Rio: 13 talking points as Phelps takes his gold tally to 21

First published: 13 August 2016, 16:39 IST
 
Sahil Bhalla @IMSahilBhalla

Sahil is a correspondent at Catch. A gadget freak, he loves offering free tech support to family and friends. He studied at Sarah Lawrence College, New York and worked previously for Scroll. He selectively boycotts fast food chains, worries about Arsenal, and travels whenever and wherever he can. Sahil is an unapologetic foodie and a film aficionado.