Indian Sports and Entertainment Industry

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 16 Apr 2016 20:49

It's a fair performance reflective of our ranking. We're the second highest ranked team in the tournament and finished second, and had easy wins against every lower ranked team except NZ who are a peer. Aus play on a different level, and their FIH ranking shows it - they're far above #2. We've recently drawn with or beaten everyone ranked #2 and below - Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, UK, Argentina, NZ. With some effort we can early move into top 3-4 ranking from our current top 6 level. Getting into top 1-2 territory is the harder part. Aus have been sitting on that perch for some time. We beat Netherlands for bronze in the Hockey World League final, so we can beat the top 2 on our day.

I think Oltmans is doing fine. He knows our defense is weak, and probably asked the team to focus on defense instead of running forward leaving the backside uncovered. Ok against weaker teams like Bakis or Malaysia against whom it yields wins by big margins, but Aus can leave us facing a 0-4 scoreline (or worse) by trapping and counter-attacking.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 16 Apr 2016 21:24

I feel that India is a naturally attacking team and not a European defensive side which goes on counter-attacks and gets and converts PCs. In many ways the style of playing is similar to Aus. IMO, trying to be defensive breaks the rhythm of Indian play. A 6-2 score is not different from 4-0 but it makes it more watchable. All I could see in the match is staying back and conceding goals. By the time they start attacking they are already down by 2-3 of goals and under pressure. They need to combine their free flowing attacking play (seen against Pak and Ma) with better defense. May be something is lacking.

SBajwa · Post by **SBajwa** » 18 Apr 2016 17:34

What I observed was that If Indian team scores early (1 - 10 minutes) Then they become more attacking and keeps on attacking.
If Indian team concedes a goal (1 - 10 minutes) then they go in Defensive mode and lose their aggression (forwards not running together towards goal).

What happened to Sreejesh (Goal Keeper). High number of conceded goals are due to inexperienced goal keeper (Harjot Singh).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sreejesh_Ravindran

We need Sreejesh back for Olympics.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 18 Apr 2016 17:52

5 senior members including Sreejesh were rested. This tournament many young players were given a chance.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 18 Apr 2016 19:34

Supratik wrote:5 senior members including Sreejesh were rested. This tournament many young players were given a chance.

Oh! I didn't realize they rested him. He's an excellent goalie. I wondered why Oltmans was criticial of our defense when we have one of the best goalies in the world. I did not see it mentioned that we were using the rookie instead. I think his presence would have helped against NZ and Aus in particular, but to do this well with a rookie defense is a great performance. Aus in comparison seem to have sent a near full strength team considering the names of the goalscorers.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 18 Apr 2016 23:40

In other news:
Dipa Karmakar becomes first Indian gymnast to qualify for Olympics

Dipa Karmakar will become the first Indian woman to compete in an Olympic gymnastics competition after she secured her place for this summer's Rio Games in a test event at the weekend.

Despite the sport receiving little funding in India, Commonwealth and Asian Games medallist Karmakar gathered a total score of 52.698 points in the final artistic gymnastics qualifying event in Rio to claim her place at the Games.

The international gymnastics federation confirmed her spot in an official release where she was listed among the individual qualifiers.

India have been absent from Olympic gymnastics events since 1964 when six male athletes competed. There was no qualification system in place at that time.

At the world championships in Glasgow last November, Karmakar became the first Indian to qualify for an apparatus final, where she finished fifth on the vault.

The 22-year-old raised eyebrows by attempting a vault with the highest difficulty (7.000) among all the finalists in Glasgow.

However, her attempt at the Produnova vault -- a front handspring into double front somersault -- failed to come off cleanly as her bottom touched the mat before she bounced back onto her feet.

Vault is one of those things where you just have to get everything right on one try. If her competition has a bad day, she could even medal, because she's already a Commonwealth and Asian medalist and finished higher than the Asian champion from China in the world championship.

SBajwa · Post by **SBajwa** » 24 Apr 2016 17:51

http://www.rediff.com/sports/report/gra ... 160424.htm

Sandeep Tomar gets Olympics

Wrestler Sandeep Tomar secured an Olympic quota place for India in the men's 57kg freestyle category with a bronze-medal finish on the final day of the 1st World Olympic Qualifying tournament in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

The 25-year-old Sandeep became the fourth Indian wrestler after Yogeshwar Dutt (men's 65kg freestyle), Narsingh Yadav (men's 74kg freestyle), and Hardeep Singh (Greco-Roman 98kg) to book a berth for the Rio Games, to be held later this year.

Sandeep qualified for the Olympics by winning the playoff bout after having clinched the bronze medal.

"I am overjoyed at winning the quota and I think the hard yards that I put in before this qualifier that have paid off. I was a little disappointed at having missed out on the final but it was important to eliminate that loss from my thinking as soon as possible," Tomar said.

"I was moving well today, I knew that if I kept my opponent busy and engaged, I would have a good chance. Now, all I have to do is to focus on the Olympics and these next three months are going to be extremely crucial," he added.

Only the top three finishers in each weight category are eligible for an Olympic berth in this tournament. Securing a bronze medal was not enough to ensure a ticket to Rio and Sandeep had to fight with the other bronze medallist in his category for a lone third-place finish.

Sandeep kept his nerves during the bronze-medal qualification round and comprehensively defeated Ukrainian wrestler Andriy Yatsenko with a dominating 11-0 show.

En route his Olympic qualification, Sandeep defeated Sezar Akgul of Turkey 11-0 and Kyrgyzstan's Ulukbek Zholdoshbekov 4-1 to enter the semi-final round.

However, he could not cross the semi-final hurdle, going down to Mirjalal Hasan-Zada of Azerbaijan 8-8 in a closely-fought battle.

Sandeep came back strongly from his disappointing semi-final loss to thrash Alexandru Chirtoaca of Moldova 10-0 in his bronze medal bout to ensure that he got an opportunity to fight for a place in the Olympics.

However, other Indian men's freestyle grapplers in the fray returned empty-handed on Sunday.

Sumit got off to a poor start, losing his pre-quarterfinal bout to Hungary's Daniel Ligeti 4-6 but luckily got another chance to make it to the medal round as his Hungarian opponent reached the final of 125kg category.

He, however, failed to capitalise on the chance after getting injured and did not fight in his repechage bout.

Somveer (86kg) and Satywart Kadian (97kg), also fumbled in the initial rounds of their respective weight divisions to crash out of the competition early.

Somveer lost to Piotr Ianulov of Moldova 0-10 in 86kg pre-quarters, while Satywart went down to Germany's Gennadji Cudinovic in a closely-fought pre-quarterfinal bout 4-5.

Earlier, he had got the better of Xueyi Zhang of China 13-2 in the qualification round.

SBajwa · Post by **SBajwa** » 25 Apr 2016 20:11

Rower Dattu Bhokanal qualifies for Olympics!

Indian rower Dattu Bhokanal, on Monday, qualified for the Rio Olympics after winning a silver in the finals of men's single sculls at the 2016 FISA Asian and Oceania Olympic Qualification Regatta at Chung-ju in South Korea.

The 25-year-old armyman clocked 7 mins 07.49 seconds in the 2km course to finish second and qualify for the Rio Olympics. The top seven in the finals qualified for the Rio Games.

India could not, however, book a Rio berth in the men's light weight double sculls as the pair of Vikram Singh and Roopendra Singh finished fifth in the finals. Only top three qualify for the Olympics in this category.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 07 May 2016 20:56

Fun video for the weekend:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnkS-zeRxSA

Watch what happens from 7:30 when the guy's 4-12 down with 30 seconds left on the clock. This is from the last world championship of wrestling.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 07 May 2016 21:33

Sakshi Malik and Vinesh Phogat have qualified for Rio wrestling.

sum · Post by **sum** » 09 May 2016 12:00

Suraj wrote:Fun video for the weekend:
Watch what happens from 7:30 when the guy's 4-12 down with 30 seconds left on the clock. This is from the last world championship of wrestling.

Extraordinary stuff!!!

Till now, the Yogeswar Dutt crocodile roll of the Korean dude at the last minute in Beijing olympics for clinching his medal used to be my 400% goosebump inducing video. This one gets added to it!

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 10 May 2016 23:25

Narsingh Yadav is unfortunately currently locked in a debate with dual Olympic medalist Sushil Kumar as to who represents the country in 74kg freestyle at Rio. The genesis of the problem is that they recategorized weight classes. Yogeshwar Dutt's 60kg disappeared and he moved up to the new 65kg . Sushil Kumar's 66kg also disappeared, therefore he moved up to 74kg. Sushil won gold at CWG2014 in 74kg but did not participate at AG2014. Yogeshwar Dutt did not participate at CWG2014 but won gold at AG2014 in 66kg. Yadav has always been in 74kg. However, during the last 2-3 years, Yadav has performed well, winning bronzes at AG2014 and at the 2015 world championship, both in 74kg. Yogeshwar won his Olympic bronze in 60kg, while Sushil too won both his Olympic medals and his World Championship gold in 66kg.

So the situation now is, who goes to Rio as our 74kg choice ? Thanks to Yadav's performance at the 2015 worlds in the video above, he won India the quota spot, but the spot is assigned to country, not person. So Sushil wants a trial to be held between him and Yadav to pick the 74kg choice, while Yadav wants to go by default as the person who won the quota spot. Personally I think Sushil's argument is more correct because all countries with multiple contenders hold trials for their quota spots. Sushil was magnanimous enough to vacate his previous 66kg so Yogeshwar could participate at Rio, but now he risks not going at all. On the other hand, Sushil has not helped his case by not competing regularly, not winning the quota spot himself, and not even making his progress easy for WFI to gauge.

It's a rather disappointing situation overall because both are medal contenders at the world level, but unfortunately only one can go.
Next move on Rio Gold? The enormity of Sushil Kumar’s quest
Sushil Kumar or Narsingh Yadav: Biggest question staring Indian wrestling ahead of Rio Olympics 2016
Yadav is young and has recent accomplishments, but Sushil's accomplishments are greater, though he has not competed in almost 2 years as he tries to gain the power needed to win at world level in his new weight category. CWG2014 was too easy for him - he crushed everyone including the TSP dude in the final.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 11 May 2016 01:33

seems we really under-performed on the boxing front which used to be a bright spot in past games. the association hangama took its toll.

SBajwa · Post by **SBajwa** » 12 May 2016 00:04

Wrestlers Ravinder Khatri and Babita Kumari have secured spots at the upcoming Rio Olympics after their rivals failed a dope test, taking the total number of quota places from India to eight.

Khatri was awarded the berth in the Greco-Roman 85 kg after Kenzheev Zhanarbek of Kyrgystan tested positive at the Asian Olympic qualifier.

Babita gets a shot at competing in Rio with Mongolian wrestler Sumiya Erdenechimeg failing the dope test in 53 kg freestyle, also at the Asian qualifier.

Last week, Vinesh Phogat clinched a gold as she and Sakshi Malik secured Rio berths in 48 and 58kg respectively at the second World Olympic Qualifying tournament in a historic feat of two Indian women wrestlers qualifying for Olympics for the first time.

While Vinesh won a gold in 48kg category, Sakshi bagged a silver in 58kg class as they booked a Rio Games quota place each for the country.

This is the first time two women wrestlers from India have qualified for the Olympics. At 2012 London Games, Geeta Phogat was the lone Indian female grappler in the fray.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 14 May 2016 15:42

Vijender wins his 6th pro-bout by KO. Will now compete for the WBO regional title in Delhi.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 14 May 2016 21:29

Saina has slipped to 8th position. Sindhu has moved upto 10th. Saina may face the top 4 in QF in Rio unless she moves upto 4th before start. Don't know if that is possible. Will be hard on her energy as will be with Sindhu as you have to beat three higher ranked opponents consecutively to win.

SBajwa · Post by **SBajwa** » 16 May 2016 19:51

one more athlete qualified 91 total now for Rio!

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 20 May 2016 04:40

Indian women's team assured of a medal for the second time running in Uber Cup world team badminton championship. They face China in the semifinal, having beaten Thailand. Korea and Japan face off in the other semifinal.

Ankit Desai · Post by **Ankit Desai** » 20 May 2016 06:02

19 year old Ruthvika Shivani Gadde did a good job. Nice to see women single doing good and some one to carry forward after Saina and Sindhu.

-Ankit

Ankit Desai · Post by **Ankit Desai** » 20 May 2016 06:06

Indian wrestling is in the mess. The question "who will represent India in 74kg FS category Sushil or Narsing" is troubling India.

Looks like Narsingh is the first choice of WFI.

-Ankit

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 20 May 2016 11:24

It's not really a 'mess' . We have a tough choice between a world championship medalist who's in form, and a dual Olympic medalist, who's extremely hungry for an Olympic gold. Unfortunately, the games weight categories cannot be helped. Neither Sushil nor Yadav is a bad choice. The problem is that this is zero sum and only one can go. Both Yogeshwar and Yadav/Sushil are capable of medaling at Rio. Even one of the women could medal. Here's Babita Kumari at the last world championship quarterfinal demolishing her German opponent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D-L2-MrObw

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 20 May 2016 19:22

They should have a three match trial. Let the best man go.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 20 May 2016 20:14

I am not very hopeful of Olympic badminton chances. Unless Saina is saving energy or avoiding injuries she is not in peak form and Sindhu-Srikanth have not really matured.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 20 May 2016 21:07

We lost 0-3 to China in the Uber Cup semifinal. It's to be expected. Each round is 3 singles and 2 doubles. That means either we need 3 great singles players or 2x singles + 1x doubles, or two top doubles teams. We don't have any of that - we have 2 good singles players who are currently out of form, and a teenager for the third singles, and a formerly good doubles pair who are out of touch now. Even with that, we're good enough to be consistently one of the top 4 women's badminton countries and that's an accomplishment. Before 2014, we never came close to medaling in Uber Cup, and now we have done so in the last two editions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uber_Cup

In the Olympics, each country can only send its top 2 badminton players in any event, provided they rank in the top 16. Arguably this means an easier passage to the medal round, but also the potential to meet a top player early if seeded too low.

Kakkaji · Post by **Kakkaji** » 25 May 2016 21:29

India thump Pakistan to enter final of Asian Snooker Team Championship

MUMBAI: Ace cueists Pankaj Advani and Aditya Mehta combined forces to power India into the final of the Asian Snooker team championship in Abu Dhabi after thrashing arch-foes Pakistan 3-0 today.

India will take on Iran in the final.

Mehta, India's lone professional snooker player, gave the country a grand start when he drubbed Mohammed Asif 73-16 in the opening game of the semifinal, according to information provided by the team's coach Derek Sippy.

Thereafter Advani, recently crowned the continent's 6-Red champion, showed impressive touch to outclass Asjad Iqbal 83-25 to give India a 2-0 lead.

Advani and Mehta then joined hands to trounce Asif and Asjad 92-8 to give India a commanding 3-0 victory.

Bhurishrava · Post by **Bhurishrava** » 25 May 2016 22:21

Ruthvika Shivani Gadde is a top future prospect for Indian badminton. She is tall, athletic and has started early.
Hopefully she gets herself a good coach.

SagarAg · Post by **SagarAg** » 25 May 2016 22:51

Bhurishrava wrote:Ruthvika Shivani Gadde is a top future prospect for Indian badminton. She is tall, athletic and has started early.
Hopefully she gets herself a good coach.

Isn't she from Gopichand Academy?

SBajwa · Post by **SBajwa** » 31 May 2016 21:19

seema punia qualifies for olympics discus throw (92 total now)

Bhurishrava · Post by **Bhurishrava** » 31 May 2016 23:40

SagarAg wrote:
Bhurishrava wrote:Ruthvika Shivani Gadde is a top future prospect for Indian badminton. She is tall, athletic and has started early.
Hopefully she gets herself a good coach.
Isn't she from Gopichand Academy?

She is from Hyderabad so must be from Gopichand academy.
I have lost respect for Gopichand as a coach. Particularly because he has not been able to manage a talented player like Srikanth.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 31 May 2016 23:52

I think Gopichand is spread thin. He has too many responsibilities and too little support staff. The thing that differentiates the Chinese is not that they're more capable but that they have extremely good talent spotting and lifecycle coaching. In many sports like TT and badminton they have multiple past world champions as their primary coaches. For example, their TT men's team coach is former world champion Liu Guoliang. His contemporary Kong Linghui is the women's national coach. Their badminton head coach is former doubles world champion Li Yongbo. They have multiple support coaches and training drivers in addition to these folks. We have Gopichand primarily, with Madhumita Bisht in a support role, and Vimal Kumar apparently as Saina's coach.

Gopichand's work has gone far past the original effort to push Saina to world beating level. We now have enough talent to have 3 top 20 players in mens and womens singles, and successive Uber Cup medals. We've also enough men's depth to medal in Thomas Cup with a little more effort. His result level has stagnated now, probably because he's extended too thin. Before blaming him, it's worth looking at the financial and manpower constraints he's working with.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 01 Jun 2016 19:04

Sindhu and Srikanth should find new coaches if they can afford it. They need specialists who will focus only on them like Vimal Kumar does with Saina.

Picklu · Post by **Picklu** » 02 Jun 2016 23:14

Its Sania vs Lee in the French Open mixed doubles final.

Hope they pair up for the Olympic. Though given how london turned out, I will be surprised if that happens.

For the life of me, I can not figure out why Lee is such a hated figure for his fellow desi players while universally respected outside.

Bhurishrava · Post by **Bhurishrava** » 02 Jun 2016 23:24

I think Sindhu is doing fine. Its Srikanth who has gone from star to bust. And that is worrying. I saw Gopichand talking to him after his first round loss to Tian Houwei in india open.
Srikanth needs confidence boost. His problems are all mental. And I can see it but Gopi cant

. I ve nothing against Gopi but I hope Indian badminton does not go back to , `also participated` stage again.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 03 Jun 2016 00:17

There's no reason to believe Gopichand can't see it. Let's not get ahead of ourselves here - he's one of only two All-England champions and already a legendary Drona-winning coach, and we are keyboard warriors onlee.

Personally I think the best impetus for Srikanth to improve is another Indian player making waves and pushing Srikanth's ego to perform.

Picklu · Post by **Picklu** » 06 Jun 2016 07:33

RIP Pocket Hercules.

Your death might be over shadowed by Ali but you were no less.

deejay · Post by **deejay** » 06 Jun 2016 08:18

Picklu wrote:RIP Pocket Hercules.

Your death might be over shadowed by Ali but you were no less.

The man is a legend!

A cousin of mine, has been making a documentary film on him for last 02 years. Hopefully, soon the movie will be completed and ready to air.

SBajwa · Post by **SBajwa** » 06 Jun 2016 18:52

Avtar Singh qualifies for Olympics! Total 96 now have qualified.

South Asian Games (SAG) gold medallist judoka Avtar Singh has qualified for the Rio Olympics in the under 90kg weight category, the national federation said on Saturday.

As per the list released by the International Judo Federation, Avtar has qualified for the Rio Games under the continental quota, Judo Federation of India President Mukesh Kumar said in a release.

Besides the SAG gold in Shillong in February, Avtar, who hails from Punjab, took the bronze in Asian Junior Judo Championships in 2011.

He also won gold medals in senior national judo championships in 2013-14 and 2014-15. In the Asian judo championships in April in Uzbekistan, Avtar finished fifth after beating judokas from China and Iran.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 08 Jun 2016 03:02

Delhi HC has decided to dismiss Sushil Kumar's plea for a selection trial. So Narsingh Yadav is our 74kg freestyle competitor.

sum · Post by **sum** » 08 Jun 2016 05:56

Suraj wrote:Delhi HC has decided to dismiss Sushil Kumar's plea for a selection trial. So Narsingh Yadav is our 74kg freestyle competitor.

^^ Feel bad that such a legend has to bow out this way but happy that we have reached a stage where people have to compete to even earn the right to represent India in Olympics!

Bhurishrava · Post by **Bhurishrava** » 10 Jun 2016 12:19

Srikanth and Saina have reached the semi final of Australian open Super Series.
The mens draw was underrepresented but Saina beat Ratchanok to get there.