E-Paper
Flop show by Seema
NEW DELHI: India’s athletes, barring exceptions, have failed to repeat their recent performances at Rio. The list of non-performers is growing. Late on Monday, woman
NEW DELHI: India’s athletes, barring exceptions, have failed to repeat their recent performances at Rio. The list of non-performers is growing. Late on Monday, woman discus thrower Seema Antil Punia demonstrated that her performance had regressed, instead of peaking. Punia, 33, was included by the sports ministry under its Target Olympic Podium scheme (TOPs) and granted more than Rs 40 lakh for advanced training.
Punia’s best out of three attempts in qualification was 57.58m and she was eliminated after finishing ninth. Her opening try was followed by a foul and 56.78m. The top four in the two groups and the best four losers entered the final. Three months ago in Salinas, California, Punia recorded her season’s best of 62.62m to qualify for Rio.
But this is not the first time that Punia, who won silver at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games and gold at the Incheon Asian Games, both in 2014, has failed to produce her best in the Olympics.
In 2012, she recorded 62.60m in the US to qualify for the London Games, where her best of 61.91m placed her 13th overall. She achieved her personal best of 64.64m to qualify for the 2004 Athens Games, where she managed only 60.64m.
She courted controversy before the start of the Rio Games. Despite a sports ministry circular not to train in Russia, she went ahead with her plan to train in the country whose athletes were banned on a charge of state-sponsored doping. Her defence was that she had funded her trip.
India continued to fare poorly in Greco-Roman wrestling. Hardeep Singh lost his opening 98kg bout 1-2 to Turkey’s Ildem Cenk. His hopes will depend on Cenk reaching the final, when those who have lost him will get a second chance in the repechage rounds.
