India Olympics: the racket sports

Badminton:
Did you see Deepika and Prakash Padukone play in a recent match? They seemed to glide across the court. Well I have recently resumed badminton for fun. And I don't seem to glide at all - far from it... ( the court seems so small, but when you play it is exhausting!) But anyway it is good to watch Badminton when the players are good :-) Here are the duo of badminton olympians from India.

Anup Sridhar: Anup is a 25 year old player from Bangalore with a career best rank of 24. Anup has his website, and trains at Tata Padukone academy. And he blogs as well. He has beaten the world number one and gold medalist at previous Olympics, so don't rule out a surprise showing.

Saina Nehwal: At 18, she is one of the bright starts of the future, and comes from a family where both parents are state champions. A Mittal trust athlete, she has recently broken into the top 20 in world rankings. She is also the brand ambassador for the Save the Girl Child campaign, - thats the way it should be!


Tennis:
My tennis stints, once every 5 years or so, are worse than badminton - It seems a futile attempt with me spending more time picking up the balls rather than playing. Anyways, our tennis stars need no introduction, so will just link to their wiki pages. While you are watching the "must see" Nadal - Federer match, don't forget to root for your bronze medalist, and grand slam doubles champions. Surprises are possible!

Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes: Doubles
Sania Mirza and Sunita Rao: Doubles
Sania Mirza: Singles


Table Tennis:
Love this fast paced game - and you guessed right - below average in this as well. India is going to be represented by these two stars.

Achanta Sharath Kamal: Singles - 26 year old from Tamil Nadu is an Arjuna award winner and a commonwealth gold medalist. He resides in Chennai and for the info of fellow chennaites, he is an alumni of PSBB and Loyola. And an A.R. Rehman fan who plays the guitar, his target is 2012 Olympics. Currently ranked 79, it may be tough to expect a medal, but you never know.


Neha Agarwal: Neha is a Delhi girl, is a newcomer, who’s surprised one and all with her unexpected qualification according to this report. Barely 18, from DPS, she probably hopes to win a match or two. Another bright star for the future perhaps?

BTW, if you find any press article in the next day or so with the player profiles, let me know - as I am running out of patience, and would just love to read and link it:-)

Knowing your Indian Olympians

Continuing the names and faces posts: (without the faces - it is taking too long - so skipping them for now)

The Shooting Stars:

• Sanjeev Rajput (50 m Rifle 3 Positions Men): This 22 year old navy man is a son of Krishan Lal Rajput who earns his livelihood by selling food items on roadside in Jagadhri! He won the bronze medal in the Men's 50m Rifle Prone at the 2006 Commonwealth Games. These are the stories that give me hope that if given the right infrastructure and support, the future Olympics will be good for India. More info
  

• Abhinav Bindra (10 m Air Rifle Men): At 25, already a 2 time Olympian, an arjuna award winner, a Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award winner. He broke the Olympic record in 2004 but failed to win a medal but has won several medals in other meets. He is an MBA, has won tons of medals - and is going to blog during the olympics. He is supported by the Mittal trust.
  

• Gagan Narang (10 m Air Rifle Men): Supported by the Olympic Gold Quest foundation of Geet Seethi and Prakash Padukone, Gagan is a 25 year old based in Hyderabad who has won several medals in the past. He has been the world number one as well and is a computer science graduate and an arjuna award winner.
  

• Samaresh Jung (10 m Air Pistol Men): A son of an army colonel, Jung is a 38 year old Arjuna award winner, winner of 5 golds at the commonwealth games. His wife is a shooter as well. He missed on a record tying 6 medals in one event...

• Manavjit Singh Sandhu (Trap Men): Last year's Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award winner, the nation's highest sports award, Sandhu is also a shooter supported by the Mittal trust. Hailing from Punjab, the 32 year old shooter is someone whose exceptional performance was the reason that Dravid did not get the Khel Ratna award. While his current form has not been the best, hopefully he can recover the form just in time for Beijing.
  

• Mansher Singh (Trap Men): Heading to his 4th Olympics, he competes in the same category as Sandhu. He is an arjuna award winner, and despite this being his 4th trip, he does not have a profile on wiki and I cannot find more about him :-)

• Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore (Double Trap Men): Yes we know, our only Olympic medal from 2004 athens, awarded the Khel Ratna award for 2004-2005, this Lt. Colonel in the army has other awards as well (he was a major when he won the silver wasn't he?). He is also a recipient of the Padma Shri and the Ati Vishisht seva medal. He will be the flag bearer for India at the Olympics.
  

• Anjali Bhagwat (50 m Rifle 3 Positions Women): Anjali, one of the 2 women representing Indian in shooting, is another Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award winner (2002). Shooting seems to be dominating the Khel Ratna awards! This mumbai shooter who went to the Sydney Olympics as well has her own official website. She is supported by the Mittal trust as well.

• Avneet Kaur Sidhu (10 m Air Rifle Women): A medalist at the commonwealth games and asian games, she hails from Bathinda in Punjab. An article about this athlete is here. She seems to have taken shooting as a hobby initially.

With some of the shooting squad being supported by trusts, with Rathore paving the way in Athens, with the shooters out numbering the cricketers in the national sporting honour, shooting looks like a promising chance of a medal or two. Just aim and shoot - (Kodak/Konica sponsors?)

Names and Faces of Indian Olympic contingent

It turns out there aren't too many sites with profiles of Indian athletes - so much so that my blog is in the first page of google results today for the phrase "indian olympic contingent" - yikes - we are in deeper trouble than I realized if I am the source of information :-)

FYI, thanks to a comment (courtesy preeti) in my previous post, check out Mittal Champions trust for some more details on their athletes.

So I am going to try to make time to put some names, pictures for some categories- essentially doing the work of the IOA, Sports Authority of India, the Khel Ratna nominations committee, etc.

Archery:

Dola Banerjee: Women's Team Recurve

Photo courtesy:

Born Jun 2nd, 1980, hails from West Bengal, and is an Arjuna award winner. She is the gold medalist in the women's individual recurve competition at the archery world cup held at Dubai, in November 2007. More info in the wiki. According to this indian express story, an international standard bow with 12 arrows costs Rs. 8 lakhs atleast! She thanks the Tatas as well.

Pranitha Vardhineni: Women's Team Recurve

Photo courtesy:

An 18 year old from Andra Pradesh, from a remote area called Parvathagiri mandal Her parents are agriculturists. A silver medalist in the Mexico World Cup. More info on her.

Bombayala Devi: Women's Individual and Team Recurve

She hails from Manipur and has several bronze medals and gold medals to her name and has been most consistent. A Mittal Champions Trust Athlete

Mangal Singh Champia: Men's Individual Recurve

Photo courtesy:
Born: 9 nov 1983

Bronze medalist in the team competition at the 2006 Asian Games, Champia hails from Ichacuti village in Singhbhum district of Jharkhand (Dhoni - highlight him?). A Mittal Champions Trust Athlete. and a gold medalist at the 2008 world cup

Looking for some Brahmastras from you (the archery team from small town & rural India) leading to some medals!

Info courtesy: Wikipedia.
If you interested in the windy conditions in Beijing and how it may impact the archers.
What is Recurve?

If I have got anything wrong about the athletes - let me know.

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By the time I finished this post, I realized that I am not going to be able to find time to do this for all the categories, unless I take a break like Dhoni!

Tired - check.
Working without a significant break (small vacations and national holidays don't count) - check.
Important project coming up (alias test series) - check

What do you think? I don't really dare though since it would most likely be a permanent break in that case..

Referrals

As I watched the third's day play, a couple of thoughts crossed my mind on the referral. One is the neutrality of the third umpire (nothing against this specific umpire). In test cricket, the on-field umpires are from neutral countries. But with the new referral system, the third umpire plays a more important role, as the most crucial and close decisions are likely to be referred. So it calls for one of two solutions, all the umpires be neutral or remove the restriction all together? Otherwise the neutrality serves no purpose.

Second is the amount of time taken to request a referral. In tennis for example, they ask for a call to be checked almost immediately. However Jayawardene today took a lot of time asking for referrals, even talking to the umpire (the one against Dravid comes to mind).

I think the umpire should not be consulted (the captain can judge his odds of getting a verdict in his favor based on the umpire's response). Also, shouldn't the captain make the request within 10-15 seconds? After all he just needs a aye or nay from the close-in fielders, not a group discussion.

What are your thoughts on referrals so far?

Viru

Some days you exasperate us, some days you exhilarate us and this knock belonged to latter category. What a special innings and you were the one that saved the team from another 130 all out score. However, I do notice one problem that only four of you have played in the series so far (yourself, Gautam, VVS and Ishant). And 4 versus 11 will lose more often than not, despite this knock. So can you talk to your buddies and see if you can muster any additional support, one more bowler and batsman atleast?