Olympics .. here we come !!

The Olympics season is coming up and the Indian Athletes are raring to go... Many athletes are peaking at the right moment and have qualified for the London Olympics.

London Bound..

The Lodon bound berths are filling up fast with last of the qualifying tournaments / matches taking place now and will do so throughout June. The Indians are making good use of these last ditch opportunities and sealing their places on the plane to London.

Some of the recent Indian wins ....

MC Mary Kom qualified for the women's boxing in the Flyweight category (51 Kgs). - By the way, this women's category is featuring for the first time in Olympics - so well done Mary Kom !!

Sushil Kumar also won and qualified.

The women's Archery (Recurve) Team - has also qualified.

Earlier men's Hockey team qualified winning the last qualifying tournament and taking the only spot available... It would have been disastrous but the Nobbs-boys made it thru ...phew !!

Let's enjoy the Qualififcations for the time being..

I know, the critics will be out comparing the standards and statistics of our Athletes.. but I would at this moment enjoy the qualifications across various disciplines.. giving us additional interest in the games :-)..
by the way, till now about 70 Athletes have qualified (including 16 member Men's hockey team). Lets see what the final tally comes out to be.

Do send in your comments on your take on this... lets build it up for the Indian Contingent !!

List of qualifiers till now :

Archery
Laishram Bombayla Devi, Deepika Kumari, Chekrovolu Swuro and Jayanta Talukdar
Athletics
Men's 20 km walk: Gurmeet Singh, Baljinder Singh, Irfan Kolothum Thodi
Women's discus throw: Krishna Poonia, Seema Antil
Men's discus throw: Vikas Gowda
Men's shot put: Om Prakash Karhana
Women's 800m: Tintu Luka
Men's triple jump: Renjith Maheshwary
Women's 3000 m steeplechase: Sudha Singh
Women's triple jump: Mayookha Johny
Men's 50km walk: Basanta Bahadur Rana or Sandeep Kumar
Men's marathon: Ram Singh Yadav
Badminton
Women's singles: Saina Nehwal
Men's singles: Parupalli Kashyap
Mixed doubles: Jwala Gutta, Valiyaveetil Diju
Women's doubles: Jwala Gutta, Ashwini Ponnappa
Boxing
Men's light flyweight(49kg): Devendro Singh
Men's bantamweight (56kg): Shiva Thapa
Men's lightweight (60kg): Jai Bhagwan
Men's light welterweight (64kg): Manoj Kumar
Men's welterweight (69kg): Vikas Krishan Yadav
Men's middleweight (75kg): Vijender Singh
Men's light heavyweight (81kg): Sumit Sangwan
Women's flyweight (51kg): Mary Kom

Men's Hockey: Goalkeepers: Bharat Chetri (captain) and P.R. Sreejesh.
Defenders: V.R.Raghunath, Ignace Tirkey, Sandeep Singh.
Midfielders: Sardar Singh (vice captain), Gurbaj Singh, Birendra Lakra, Manpreet Singh.
Forwards: S.V. Sunil, Gurwinder Singh Chandi, Shivendra Singh, Danish Mujtaba, Tushar Khandker, Dharamvir Singh, S.K. Uthappa.
Stand-bys: Sarvanjit Singh and Kothajit Singh
Swimming Judo
Women's 63kg: Garima Chaudhary
Rowing: India has qualified two boats with up to three athletes in men's single sculls and lightweight double sculls
Shooting 
Men's 50m rifle 3 positions: Sanjeev Rajput
Men's 50m rifle prone: Joydeep Karmakar
Men's 10m air rifle: Abhinav Bindra, Gagan Narang
Men's 25m rapid fire pistol: Vijay Kumar
Men's double trap: Ronjan Sodhi
Men's trap: Manavjit Singh Sandhu
Women's 25m pistol: Rahi Sarnobat, Heena Sidhu
Women's 10m air pistol: Annuraj Singh
Women's trap: Shagun Chowdhary

Men's 100m freestyle: Virdhawal Khade
Men's 100m breaststroke: Sandeep Sejwal
Men's 200m freestyle: Aaron D'Souza or Virdhawal Khade
Men's 200m breaststroke: Sandeep Sejwal
Men's 1500m freestyle: Saurabh Sangvekar Table tennis
Men's singles: Soumyajit Ghosh Swimming
Men's 100m freestyle: Virdhawal Khade
Men's 100m breaststroke: Sandeep Sejwal
Men's 200m freestyle: Aaron D'Souza or Virdhawal Khade
Men's 200m breaststroke: Sandeep Sejwal
Men's 1500m freestyle: Saurabh Sangvekar
Weightlifting:
Men's 69kg: Katulu Ravi Kumar
Women's 48kg: Ngangbam Soniya Chanu
Wrestling
Men's freestyle 55kg: Amit Kumar
Men's freestyle 60kg: Yogeshwar Dutt
Men's freestyle 66kg: Sushil Kumar
Men's freestyle 74kg: Narsingh Pancham Yadav
Women's freestyle 55kg: Geeta Phogat
Table tennis
Men's singles: Soumyajit Ghosh Women's singles: Ankita Das
Tennis
Mens' doubles: Leander Paes
Weightlifting:
Men's 69kg: Katulu Ravi Kumar Women's 48kg: Ngangbam Soniya Chanu
Wrestling
Men's freestyle 55kg: Amit Kumar
Men's freestyle 60kg: Yogeshwar Dutt
Men's freestyle 66kg: Sushil Kumar
Men's freestyle 74kg: Narsingh Pancham Yadav
Women's freestyle 55kg: Geeta Phogat Women's singles: Ankita Das
Tennis
Men's doubles: Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi, (Rohan Bopanna)*, (Somdev Devvarman)*, (Sania Mirza)*
* - to be confirmed based on ATP rankings

Vishy.. the old fox

Vishwanathan Anand won the 8th game of the World Chess Championship match to hold Boris Gelfand 4-4. This win comes after a shock loss in the 7th game for Anand.

Anand, who has been off-color for last few years, seemed to be going down that path when he lost the 7th game and all the critics were all over him. However, the old fox returned the compliments in style by shutting out Gelfand in the very nextgame and that too within 17 moves !! This win should boost Anand's confidence and take his tally of titles further..

Way to go Anand!!

Somdev is world no. 70 !!

Somdev Devvarman moved a bit closer to his target of a top-50 ATP ranking by the end of the year, by getting to world no.70, as per ATP chart released on Monday, May 2, 2011.

His strong showing in the Serbia open helped him reach this rank. He again ran into Tipsarevic of Serbia (rank 36) and lost out to him in the quarterfinals. He had played him in the Davis Cup earlier and also in the Masters. Do look up Somdev labeled posts on this blog to read all about those encounters.

Somdev played very well in this tournament and continuing with his giant-killings, upstaged world no. 26 Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in the second round. Hope his good run continues and he reaches top-50 sooner than he thought :-).

Meanwhile, Sania Mirza is now ranked 77 on the WTA chart.

Way to go Indian Tennis !!

Your Favourite Sport(s) and your thoughts on it..

I have interest in all sports and the excitement for that particular sport increases many-folds when India is playing internationally.

It gets the adrenalin pumping - be it the Football qualifiers, where India is pitted against much higher ranked teams; Chess events, where we expect Vishy to hold the challenge and win everytime;Formula one, where Narain Karthikeyan has another chance; Hockey tournaments, where the Indian team struggles to qualify for bigger events like Olympics; Badminton tournaments, where Saina Nehwal will weave her magic spell and come out victorious; Tennis events, where the double S- Somdev and Sania will show their mettle to much higher ranked players; or, any Asian/Commonwealth events, where indian contingent will get many golds , silvers and bonzes in Weightlifting, Atheletics, Boxing, Shooting, Rowing, Archery and many such sports. Now, I will look forward to 2012 London Olympics as well :-).

Which are the sports you like and follow keenly and what are the changes you think are required to get India to no.1 in that sport or in case it is already no.1, then how to sustain that ranking? For example, In an earlier post, I was wondering who will keep up Vishwanathan Anand's legacy in chess. See that post here.

Keep your comments flowing in.....

Sania rolls on....

Sania is having a dream run at the WTA Family Circle Cup. She came thru two rounds of qualifying and has gone on to reach the quarter-finals in Singles.

She is also having a great run in the doubles too, having reached the quarter-finals.

Wow... Hope she is back in peak form... Let's see where she reaches this year.

(Update 1: Sania lost to Peng,  6-2, 2-6, 2-6. Peng is 11th seed and ended Sania's dream run. Never mind, hope Sania reaches greater heights).

(Update 2 : Sania won the doubles title at Family Circle, with her partner Vesnina. Way to go!!! Looks like she is moving into top gear now.)

Indian Express is No.1

The Indian Express of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi won the Doubles title at Sony Ericsson Masters. With this they moved to the World No. 1 ranking also.

Third seeded Bhupathi and Paes rallied to beat second seeded Belarusian-Canadian pair of Max Mirnyi and Daniel Nestor 6-7(5) 6-2 10-5 at Crandon Park.

This win takes the Indians ahead of World number 1 duo of Bob and Mike Bryan - the famed Bryan brothers.

Paes and Bhupathi came together in January this year and won the Chennai Open. This is their second title win this year.

Looks like good times for Indian Tennis in doubles is here and we can expect some more major wins this year from the Indian Express.

What say... ?

CHAMPIONS !!!!!

Indian Cricket team finally broke the jinx and won the Cricket World Cup 2011, after 28 years. The last victory had come in 1983 under the captaincy of Kapil Dev - the legendary All rounder.

The Road Traveled

The team started as the hot favorites to win, with the Cup happening on home soil and the team in great flow. This brought immense pressure on the team to perform and deliver, even more so, with India being a cricket-crazy nation. The fans did not seem to want anything less than the cup.

India started well from the first game itself against Bangladesh. The tied-match against England gave them a wake-up call and came at the right time. In that match India batted first and scored a handsome 337, but England chased well and exposed the Indian chinks, to tie the match.


In the quarter finals, India met Australia, the defending champions. The blues of 2003 final, where Australia walloped India, came rushing back to every ones mind. Will it be a repeat? Can India pull it off? With some sensational batting by Yuvraj and great work by everyone else, India won and made to Semi-final.

In the semi-final, India met Pakistan. The record before that match was that India had defeated Pakistan on all 4 occasions. Will Pakistan break the jinx and turn the tables. They were coming into the Semis backed by Shahid Afridi's great leadership and personal form. The match at Mohali was finally won by India. And India stormed into the finals!!

In the finals, India overcame some anxious moments to overcome Sri Lanka and lifted the WORLD CUP!!

The Indians were CHAMPIONS!!!

The Team

What stood out was that some player or the other delivered during the crunch situations. Each member seemed to be hungry for success and the team was not looking to just one or two players to see them home.


During league phases, Yuvraj was in his elements and contributed with both bat and ball. Dhoni and Gambhir came good when required in the finals when India had lost Sehwag and Sachin and were reeling at 31-2. Nehra, who was hit aplenty against South Africa bowled well against Pakistan. Zaheer was the mainstay all through and was doing his work and providing crucial wickets. Raina, Virat - the young guns were good in fielding and saved many a run and also shone with the bats. They batted according to the situations and belied their young ages. Ashwin gave a good account of himself. Dhoni led from front and made many a bold decisions which seem to pay off.

All in all a great team work saw India home. Do consider the fact that they started as favorites, were playing at home and had the expectations of 1.2 billion Indians and many more all over the world. With so much pressure, it was great to see the team deliver. Hats off guys !!

The Coaching and Support staff also did their bit and ran the show from the background. Coach Gary Kirsten and his team did well.

By the way, I feel that the team started its journey under Saurav Ganguly who made them believe that they could be aggressive and can show it too..the journey culminated under Dhoni with the World Cup in their hands. Thoughts?