Indian Sports and Entertainment Industry

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 21 Sep 2014 12:00

Sourav Ghosal enters squash semis - assured of medal.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 21 Sep 2014 12:37

I'm impressed with Jitu Rai. He's only been on the international circuit for one year. In that year he has:
Silver in world championship
Gold and silver in world cup
Gold in CWG
Gold in AG

No Indian shooter ever had results this good, definitely not in their first year. Bindra took years to get where he did. Rai's young by shooting standards. Asian Games standard in both his events is practically at Olympics standard - both his 50m and 10m qualification scores would also have got him into the finals at the 2012 Olympics. At London, Jin Jong Oh won both those events, but here, Rai beat him in individual performance in the qualification stage in both events.

I hope he medals, or even better, wins in both events at Rio 2016 - he's already easily capable of making the final in both his events at that level, and has also qualified for Rio already. Congrats to the Gorkha Rifles, Indian Army and Shooting Federation of India for finding him.

Earlier we had stronger rifle shooters and relatively weaker pistol shooters at world level. Now we have some strong pistol shooters - Rai in air pistol backed up by Jung and Nanjappa, Vijay Kumar in rapid fire and center fire pistol, and new women shooters who won at CWG level and then medaled at AG level. Demonstrating depth at AG level translates directly to high medal prospects at Olympics, since since getting to the final in both games requires almost same level of performance.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 21 Sep 2014 12:48

Deepika Pallikal bts Jyotsna Chinappa - enters squash semis.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 21 Sep 2014 12:57

I hope Ghosal wins the men's gold. He did well in CWG, where the men's squash standard is much harder.

Dipika ia up against world #1 Nicol David in the semifinal. She'll need a miracle to get through to the final.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 21 Sep 2014 18:08

So india lost 3-1 to korea in the semis of women's badminton. India lacks depth and there was too much pressure on Sindhu to deliver both singles and doubles and she crumbled.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 21 Sep 2014 22:42

High drama in the swimming pool. The aquatics center is named after Korea's most famous swimmer Park Tae Hwan, who won the 2008 Olympic gold in a shock result, and who's competing in these games. His main rival is Chinese prima donna Sun Yang, who won in the Olympics in 2012. Sun trash talked Park before the games, saying "don't let me win too easily"

The final was very narrowly won by Japan's Kosuke Hagino over both of them. I bet that felt worse for Sun and Park than losing to each other - they lost to a Japanese guy.

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 22 Sep 2014 00:25

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 22 Sep 2014 09:39

So what's the prediction from gurus on India's total tally? Any chance of being 3rd? Or a distant 4th?

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 22 Sep 2014 10:02

Women's 25m pistol team wins bronze behind Korea and China. Rahi Sarnobat is in the individual final.

Dipika Pallikal wins bronze in women's singles squash event after losing her semifinal. Sourav Ghosal will play his men's singles semifinal later.

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 22 Sep 2014 11:02

Bronze bronze bronze. Where the heck are the golds!

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 22 Sep 2014 11:27

None of our main events have started. Rai's gold was a surprise bonus from a talented newcomer. Honestly no one expected that gold, not even the Indian shooting contingent. If the Koreans flunked, the Chinese were supposed to win. But Rai somehow outdid both. I expected a medal from Rai, but not a gold - the field seemed too strong for that.

We don't have as much depth or breadth to medal higher in these shooting events at Asian level, which is effectively almost world/Olympic medal level. Maybe Bindra or Narang will win 10m men's air rifle tomorrow; I don't think we can win the team gold without an equally good third shooter like the Chinese would have. Perhaps Vijay Kumar can medal in the rapid fire/center fire events.

One bad shot at this level and you're out, like Rai found out in the 10m air pistol final, and Rahi in the 25m pistol event. CWG standard is easy compared to this. Every single one of our performances here would probably have won gold there.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 22 Sep 2014 12:41

Sourav Ghosal through to the men's single squash final, winning the semifinal in straight games with ease against world #35 Ong Bong Hee. The other semifinal is between a Kuwaiti ranked #46 and #28 ranked HK player. Ghosal is currently #16, but is playing at a higher level than his ranking, based on his recent CWG performance.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 23 Sep 2014 06:40

10m air rifle team bronze to India. Very predictable - China gets gold because all three shooters are good, and India finishes just behind Korea. We have no depth, with Bindra joined by two newcomers, and Narang not participating. However, Bindra is in the individual final, as the 5th best shooter.

So far we have 1 gold and 5 bronzes from shooting. We're consistently medaling all over, but unable to crack the top two.

Saurav Ghosal plays the #46 ranked Kuwaiti in the squash singles final.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 23 Sep 2014 06:50

Consistently medaling? Looking at SoKo and China, it is a tad disappointing. Will we even manage a distant 4th?

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 23 Sep 2014 06:58

Shooting standard at AG now is at near Olympic standard. China is a shooting powerhouse at Olympics; their very first Olympic gold came from a shooter, and they have a total 21G/13S/15B in shooting, the second best in the history of the Olympic Games.

At London 2012 shooting competition, China won 2G/2S/3B . Korea won 3G/2S/0B and was the best shooting team there, while China was 4th best. India won 0G/1S/1B in the last Olympics, and a total of four shooting medals in the entire history of Olympics.

Our performance here is roughly on par with that in relative terms, facing full strength Korean and Chinese teams. We do not yet have the ability to consistently challenge for gold at world level shooting, but we can consistently medal in a variety of shooting events.

Klaus · Post by **Klaus** » 23 Sep 2014 12:41

OCA considering entry of Oceania countries (Oz, NZ) to compete for select sports in Asiad. This will do wonders to pull the Aussies away from the C'wealth and into the Asian orbit.

It also means that the Asiad standard will be at par with Olympics, even in winter sports.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 26 Sep 2014 07:33

India is going to fall short of its previous tally of 65. I know the number of participants and sports are lower than 2010. Wrestling and Boxing are coming up that hopefully gives at least 10 total medals. If another 10 can be wrapped from the remaining events (that would be astonishing), the total would be about 40.

1 silver today.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 26 Sep 2014 12:41

Would someone please pass a message to our Asian Games contingent that despite what they've been misled to think, there is not in fact a crippling shortage of bronze in the country ?

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 26 Sep 2014 17:09

Except rowing there is not much less in 2014 compared to 2010 "so far". We can say there has been no improvement.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 26 Sep 2014 21:34

We sent a weak team. Nothing much in tennis, golf and cue sports. The fact that CWG and AG are within 2 months of each other in each edition, also hurts us. We are better off skipping CWG and focussing on AG. Peaking in sports performance is a very involved and timebound process; one cannot just show up and do well.

In relative terms we're doing better than 2010; back then we invested 5-6x more money in training the athletes in preparation for CWG2010, and that form carried over. This time, much less investment went in, and we're depending on improved training systems developed since 2010. We're ticking the usual boxes (medals in weak sports like swimming, rowing and even wushu, almost medaled in equestrian) but we don't demonstrate enough ability to fight for gold.

Ghosal's squash singles final loss was the only significant disappointment to me. At least he beat the same guy again in the team semifinal yesterday. Men's squash team can win gold. Women's team has it harder. Both are playing Malaysia in final. I don't think the archers have a chance against Korea in the team final, but they can surprise us.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 27 Sep 2014 05:05

If Pakis get 1 more Gold now, they will leap-e-frog us in the medals tally.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 27 Sep 2014 07:21

I take back what I said about the archery men's team . They beat the unbeatable Koreans for gold!

The women's team who narrowly lost their semifinal to the Koreans then beat the Iranians for bronze.

Shanmukh · Post by **Shanmukh** » 27 Sep 2014 15:08

India wins gold in Men's Team squash

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 27 Sep 2014 15:47

Unfortunately I think compound archery was not there in the last OG. Sad to see Deepika Kumari not live upto her promise. At some point they were neck-to-neck with the Koreans but have faded out. We have an improvement in squash from 2010.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 27 Sep 2014 16:24

Just checked - we have improved in archery compared to 2010. 4 medals including one gold plus one more bronze match to go. We have slipped in rowing.

Comer · Post by **Comer** » 27 Sep 2014 16:41

They don't wear head protection in Boxing these days?

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 27 Sep 2014 18:27

Not anymore in men's boxing.

KLP Dubey · Post by **KLP Dubey** » 28 Sep 2014 06:01

Suraj wrote:We sent a weak team. Nothing much in tennis, golf and cue sports. The fact that CWG and AG are within 2 months of each other in each edition, also hurts us. We are better off skipping CWG and focussing on AG. Peaking in sports performance is a very involved and timebound process; one cannot just show up and do well.

Indeed. I said the same thing before. Why go for this useless "commonwealth" games which is just a farce put up by the british to show they are still relevant. The Asian Games is where we should be at. AG+OG+different international tournaments/championships is plenty of exposure for our sportsmen.

The commonwealth games should be strictly for those countries which are "commonwealth realms", basically UK, Canada, Australia, NZ, and some mofussil Caribbean countries and Pacific islands. Why on earth are we still going there. It's ridiculous.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 28 Sep 2014 06:24

At least in the World Youth Chess championship, Indian children are doing good.

Sidd · Post by **Sidd** » 28 Sep 2014 12:52

Supratik wrote:Just checked - we have improved in archery compared to 2010. 4 medals including one gold plus one more bronze match to go. We have slipped in rowing.

We did well in Compound Archery which is a new addition got a gold, silver and bronze. In traditional recurve Archery we got a bronze.

Sidd · Post by **Sidd** » 28 Sep 2014 16:10

India should still have a pretty good chance and should end up with about 10 Golds in total. The events where they should do well are.

1. Kabaddi -2 - Men & women
2. Tennis-2 - Mixed and men's doubles.
3. Hockey-2- Men and women
4. Wrestling-1-2 - Greco Roman
5. Boxing-2-3
6. Atheletics- 2- Women 4X400, Vikas Gowda

Sidd · Post by **Sidd** » 28 Sep 2014 16:12

India did not send Men 4X400 relay team. This is proving to be a stupid decision. There were two Indians in the 400 mt finals and one came 3rd.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 28 Sep 2014 18:17

We are slowly inching up. No 9 now.

We got the gold in mens squash. I am surprised Pakistan is no where in the picture.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 28 Sep 2014 18:55

We should be 4th after Japan. That is the minimum one could expect.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 28 Sep 2014 19:04

I care less about the gold based ranking than the total medal based one. aim for the volume first. on that benchmark top five is a must have.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 28 Sep 2014 20:05

Saar, even the volume is missing as of now. Hopefully, we medal another 10 before the end.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 28 Sep 2014 20:08

wrong thread deleted.

Sidd · Post by **Sidd** » 28 Sep 2014 20:17

KJo wrote:We are slowly inching up. No 9 now.

We got the gold in mens squash. I am surprised Pakistan is no where in the picture.

They have been on a downward slope after Jahangir Khan and Jansher Khan retired. And, that was long time ago.

Sidd · Post by **Sidd** » 28 Sep 2014 20:19

Rahul M wrote:I care less about the gold based ranking than the total medal based one. aim for the volume first. on that benchmark top five is a must have.

On basis of total medals we might finish on number 4 or 5.

Sidd · Post by **Sidd** » 28 Sep 2014 20:22

India needs to start focusing on developing swimmer. One good swimmer can get you 4-5 medals. We cannot blame physique for not performing well. Chinese and Japanese have been winning medals at the world level for ages.