Rio Opening Extravaganza is Over. Now the Games Begin

As the sky was set ablaze with fireworks, the largest Indian contingent ever for the Olympic games walked out onto the Maracana Stadium in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.

Abhinav Bindra, the country’s only individual Olympic gold winner, led the Indian team as the flag bearer. Bindra will be eyeing another gold medal before bowing out from what he says will be his final Olympic games.

India have always been underachievers at the world’s biggest sporting extravaganza. The nation has a total of only nine gold medals, of which eight were won by the hockey team between 1928 and 1980.

The Indian contingent was the 95th team in the parade. The Indian men’s hockey team and the archery team, who had rankings round before the opening ceremony, decided to skip the event altogether.

Archery Rankings Round Results

The archery team was in focus on Day 0 of the Olympics as they competed in the rankings phase of the competition.

Debutant Atanu Das finished fifth in the qualification round in the individual men’s archery event. He managed a score of 683 out of a maximum possible 720. Das, had a shaky start and was 13th ranked at the end of eight rounds. However, he bounced back in the last four rounds shooting 23 perfect tens. He is the only male Indian archer at the Olympics, as the Indian men’s team couldn’t secure qualification at the World Championships back in June.

The women’s team however disappointed finishing 7th with a collective score of 1,892. World number five, Deepika Kumari was off to a good start but faltered in the later stages to finish 20th with a total score of 640. Bombayla Devi and Laxmi Rani Majhi finished 24th and 43rd respectively.

Day 1 Heads-up

5:00 pm IST

• Ayonika Paul and Apurvi Chandela will represent India in the women’s 10 meter air rifle shooting qualification.
• Dattu Baban Bhokanal will be up in action in the men’s single sculls rowing event.

7:30 pm IST

• The Indian Men’s Hockey team, led by newly appointed captain Sreejesh Ravindran, will take centre stage as they battle it out against Ireland in their Group B opener.
  
• Both the men’s and women’s doubles tennis matches start today. Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna will face Poland’s Marcin Matkowski and Lukasz Kubot in Round 1 of the men’s doubles event.
• Sania Mirza and Prarthana Thombare will take on China’s Peng Shuai and Zhang Shuai in the women’s event.
• In the women’s table tennis event, Mouma Das will face Romania’s Daniela Monteiro Dodean.
  

8:30 pm IST

• Manika Batra will lock horns with Poland’s Katarzyna Grzybowska-Franc in the women’s singles table tennis event.

9:30 pm IST

• Gurpreet Singh and Jitu Rai will be featuring in the men’s 10 meter air pistol shooting event. Jitu Rai, who won gold medals at the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games, is regarded as one of India’s best chances of winning a medal at the Olympics.

12:30 am IST (August 7)

• The round one of the men’s singles table tennis event will see Soumyajit Ghosh go up against Thailand’s Padasak Tanviriyavechakul.

3:30 am IST (August 7)

• Sharath Kamal Achanta will go face to face with Romanian Adrian Crisan in the other men’s singles table tennis match.

Rio 2016 Curtain Raiser