Sushil Kumar wins bronze in wrestling

Congratulate Sushil Kumar.
Sushil Kumar provided an unexpected boost to India's Olympic campaign by clinching bronze medal after beating Kazakhstan's Leonid Spiridonov in the repechage match of the men's freestyle wrestling 66kg class here on Wednesday. Sushil also thwarted the challenge from American Doug Schwab and Belarrussian Albert Batyrov in the first two repechage rounds after losing his opening round bout earlier in the day. Sushil is only the second Indian wrestler to win the wrestling bronze after Kashabha Jadhav had returned with the medal in 1952 Helsinki Games. This will be after 56 years that an Indian contingent will return with more than one Olympic medal as shooter Abhinav Bindra has won first-ever Games gold medal for the country earlier at the Beijing Games. Sushil had lost to far superior Ukrainian Andriy Stadnik in his first round bout.

Paes-Bhupathi won first round

Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi put behind their frosty relation and recreated the old magic to sail into the second round of the men's doubles event of the Beijing Olympics on Tuesday. It took a lot to make them play together but once they walked out in the court, Paes and Bhupathi were their usual self as the 'Indian Express' duo tamed the French scratch pair of Gael Monfils and Gilles Simon 6-3, 6-3 in less than an hour to breeze into the second round. The seventh seeded Indians now meet the Brazilian pair of Marcelo Melo and Sa Andre, who upstaged the Czech pair of Tomas Berdych and Radek Stepanek 5-7, 6-2, 8-6 in a gruelling first round match at the Olympic Green Tennis Centre. Despite not playing together enough in recent past, there was no real rust in their play as Paes and Bhupathi played clinical tennis against their French rivals to chalk out a rather facile opening round victory. After the first three games went with the serve, India broke France to go 3-1 up and maintained the lead with Bhupathi serving out for the set. The second round saw both the pairs levelled at 3-3 when the Indians again broke Monfils and Simon to go 4-3 up and Paes held his serve to make it 5-3. In the ninth game again, the Indians grabbed the opportunity that came their way to inch close to the win. Monfils knocked one wide, while Simon's return was buried in the net and Paes then sealed the set and match with a scorcher of a backhand return that rifled past a baffled Monfils. Paes later said though it seemed an easy outing, they had to fight hard. "The scoreline may suggest it otherwise but I think it was not that easy. Anyway, I'm happy with the way we played but we need to raise our game in the next round," he said. "We played solid tennis and I'm really happy to start on the right note," he said.

Abhinav Bindra wins 1st Gold Medal for India

The 1st Gold Medal for India
The final shot from Abhinav Bindra's rifle may not have been heard outside the packed hall in the Beijing Shooting Range Complex on Monday morning. But its bang was loud enough to lift the spirit of a billion-plus Indians back home.

No individual gold has mattered so much to so many people in the history of Olympics. It was a medal for Abhinav; it was redemption for India. Never again will anyone be able to point a smug, sardonic finger and say: "No Indian is good enough to win an individual Olympic gold."
Hockey's eight gold medals notwithstanding, the last coming 28 years ago, this is the first time that an Indian has won an individual gold since modern Olympics started in 1896. There is no greater joy than listening to the sound of the national anthem on the world's biggest stage.

The global media looked bemused as grown-up Indians danced like little children, shedding tears of joy. How can they understand?

The joy was also spurred by the improbable nature of the triumph. The script of the men's 10m air rifle final might have been penned by Alfred Hitchcock himself. Bindra, who qualified for the final in the morning with the fourth-best score of 596, looked calm and assured when the call for the first shot came.

The first shot - 10.7. He started with a bang and that set the tone for the 10-shot final. He followed it up with a 10.3. After the third shot, a 10.4, he had moved from No. 3 to No. 2. Then, Bindra slowly ate into the lead of Finland's Henri Hakkinen and went ahead after the seventh shot with 10.6.

Hakkinen caught up with him after the ninth shot, and with one shot to go, the Indian and the Finn were tied at 689.7 points.

There was a hushed silence inside the hall. The suspense was unbearable. It's in such situations that champions show their mettle. And Bindra showed nerves of steel. He fired first, an amazing 10.8 for a total of 700.5. Home favourite and defending champion Zhu Qinan shot a 10.5 and Hakkinen simply withered under pressure, managing only 9.7. Bindra finally smiled, but barely.

He turned back and went up to hug his Swiss coach Gaby Buehlmann, with whom he trained for months in Germany, away from the intrusive home media. After the medals' ceremony, Bindra was mobbed by journalists, several of them from Finland and China.

"How does it feel Mr Bindra?" "Hard to describe it... it's the thrill of my life," he said, still looking calm as a monk. "The final shot was perfect. I just went for it. I was aggressive. It went my way. I'm lucky," he added in a matter-of-fact tone.

Will this not change his life? "My life will go on. I hope it changes the face of Olympic sports in the country," he said.

This is the fifth individual Olympic medal for India. Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav won the first, a bronze in wrestling at the Helsinki Games in 1952. After a long gap, Leander Paes won the tennis bronze in Atlanta Games in 1996. Then, Karnam Malleswari won a weightlifting bronze in 2000 in Sydney and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore raised the bar, winning a silver in Athens in 2004.

Olympics - 2008 -Ivanovic withdraws

BEIJING: Top seed Ana Ivanovic of Serbia withdrew from the Olympic tennis event on Sunday with an injury to her right thumb.
"This is one of the worst moments of my career," Ivanovic told a news conference at the Olympic Tennis Centre.
Ivanovic, who will be replaced by fellow Serb Jelena Jankovic at the top of the world rankings on Monday, said she had not been able to practice since arriving in China.
She said she sustained the injury when she returned to training after losing at Wimbledon.

Lanka's line of fire against India

India were 161 for five, leading Sri Lanka by 14 runs, at the close of the third day of the deciding third Test on Sunday.Sri Lanka grabbed control of the game as they dominated all three sessions, building a healthy 147-run lead as they extended their first innings to 396 and then making deep inroads into the top order.Rahul Dravid provided the only glimmer of hope for the tourists, looking solid on 46 not out. He was batting with the injured VVS Laxman on 17 at the close.India started their second innings confidently as Virender Sehwag (34) and Gautam Gambhir (26) added a run-a-ball, 62-run opening stand.

Phelps breaks world record in winning 400 medley gold

Michael Phelps of the United States smashed his world record in the men's 400-metres individual medley in a time of four minutes 03.84 seconds in winning the final at the Beijing Olympics on Sunday.

Phelps took 1.41 secs off his old mark of 4:05.25 and it is eighth time he has broken the 400m medley world record.

It is his seventh career Olympic gold medal and his ninth medal overall.

Laszlo Cseh of Hungary took silver in 4:06.16 with Ryan Lochte of the United States finishing with the bronze in 4:08.16.

Saina in second round

Saina Nehwal used the atmosphere she described as 'electrifying' to propel herself to a comfortable win in the first round of the Women's singles badminton competition on Saturday. The 18-year-old Saina thrashed Russian Ella Karachkova 21-9, 21-8 in just 28 minutes to move into the round of 32 where she meets Gryga Larysa. Larysa beat Agnes Allegrini 21-15, 21-11 in another match. "I found the Olympic atmosphere electrifying and enjoyed it thoroughly. I had a comfortable time and did not have to exert myself or use too much of smashes. I relied on the drop shots and they worked well enough," said Nehwal, who could run into China's fourth seed Wang Chen in the round of 16. The Indian star has been training with former All England champion Pullela Gopichand. She dominated the match from the start and ran up huge leads early in both games and then built on them to wrap up the match. Saina, a good all-round player, kept her opponent pinned to the back court and then effectively dropped the shuttle dead right in front. The long rallies also helped her get used to the atmosphere, which could be pressure filled as and when she comes across a local Chinese player. She also attacked Karachkova's serve and gave her no room to find her feet in the match. On Sunday, India's men's entry, Anup Sridhar, the World No. 29 will begin his campaign against Marco Vasconcelos of Portugal. In other matches, world No. 11 Park Sunghwan of the Republic of Korea, the winner of the 2008 Badminton Asia Championships, will compete against Canada's Andrew Dabeka. The women's singles round of 32 will see matches with the big favourites in action. Most of them had byes in the first round. Eight of the world's top 10 have qualified for the Beijing Olympics and all of them will join the competition on Sunday. World No. 1 Xie Xingfang of China, also the tournament's top seed, will meet World No. 25 Cheng Shao-Chieh from Chinese Taipei. World No. 2 Lu Lan, also a Chinese player, will compete with Karen Foo Kune of Mauritius. France's Pi Hongyan, who ranks fifth in the world, will face Claudia Rivero of Peru, while World No. 4 Denmark's Tine Rasmussen will meet Akvile Stapusaityte from Lithuania. World No. 6 Wang Chen from Hong Kong will play Eva Sladekova of Slovakia.