Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Highlights: Manu Bhaker misses out medal hat-trick; close finishes for Nishant, Deepika

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: Three very close brushes with a medal, two of those just agonisingly, cruelly close. Both Manu Bhaker and Nishant Dev were within touching distance of medals that carried the weight of history. For Manu it would've been an unprecedented third medal at the same Olympics, which would have probably been the only thing more mind-boggling than how ridiculous her campaign already was. She goes back to India with something no one from her country ever managed - two Olympic medals.

Nishant Dev started oh so well in his quarterfinal bout but Marco Verde's pro-boxing credentials came to the fore as he seemed to get into his swing completely in the final round. That swayed the judges in his favour and thus Nishant was denied the title of being the fourth Indian boxer to win an Olympic medal.

Deepika Kumari was probably one step behind Manu and Nishant as far as distance to a medal goes but she did have a chance to fight for one in her sights as she went ahead in her quarterfinal match. However, it wasn't to be for her as well.

Tomorrow one can expect some kind of a big development from the Indian contingent in the first half of the day. Do come back for that. Good night!

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: Vishnu Saravanan finished 21st and 13th position in Race 5 and Race 6 respectively today. He has a net 83 points and is placed 23rd in the overall rankings. Sailors in the top 10 after 10 races are chosen for the gold medal race.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: Nethra Kumanan finished 28th in Race 4 and 5 today in women's dinghy ILCA7 and then 20th in Race 6. She thus stands 24th in the rankings with 96 net points with four races left before the top 10 are chosen for the medal race.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: It is Marco Verde's hand that the referee lifts and the Mexican collapses down on his knees. Nishant looks a little stunned right after the decision is announced. Verde can't control himself. Some blood can be seen on the right side of his head as he goes around the ring waving to the fans, soaking in the applause. He steps off and he breaks down even more. Nishant is dragged off the ring by his coaches. What a match this was, a treat for lovers of boxing but once again today, an Indian falls agonisingly short of a medal. The final score is 4-1 to the Mexican.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: Ooo Verde seems to be coming into his own now. He lands a few and Dev is on the backfoot. That puts him in further trouble. But Nishant does well to take those punches though. The ref calls for a stoppage and asks Dev to get his laces tied up again at 1.05 and both fighters get a breather. This is a real slugfest.

It devolves into a wrestling match right after the resumption. Verde continues to charge and this is a reversal of the first round. Dev retreating, Verde advancing. Nishant puts in a combination and Verde gets a jab on the back of the Indian's head before the bell goes off. Well, that was some contest.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: Nishant has made an incredible end to that second round but this round is surely harder to judge. And there were go, the Mexican is given that round by a split 3-2 verdict.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: Nishant in the red corner. He is all speed early on. He is not waiting for the Mexican to come to him, stays on the attack for much of it. The refere does have to separate them a few times. Oh but a good jab from Verde leads the Nishant being given an 8-count. Fantastic back and forth after that towards the end of the round as well. And the four of the five judges give Nishant the first round! Quite extraordinary as this is despite Nishant being given a standing count.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: All right, the two boxers have been announced in the ring. Marco Verde is a rising name in pro-boxing and has returned to the amateur fold to try and win an Olympic medal. Nishant had beaten the Mexican when they last fought in Belgrade in 2021.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: All right, we move on quickly from that shocker on the track to the boxing ring where Nishant Dev is set to meet Mexican second seed Marco Verde in the men's 71kg quarterfinal. Remember, a win here and Nishant is assured of a medal.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: Ok first things first. USA's Melissa Jefferson and Cote d'Ivore's Marie-Josee Talou-Smith are the automatic qualifiers from Semi-final 1, having finished first and second respectively. Saint Lucia's Julien Alfred finished ahead of USA superstar Sha'Carri Richardson in semi-final 2 and they are the qualifiers. A huge, huge asterisk there being that this is where Fraser-Pryce was supposed to run and she did not start. Semi-final 3 just got done and Jamaica's Clayton Tia and Great Britain's Daryll Neita are the qualifiers from there.

Still no update on Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce. Absolutely stunning scenes in Paris and a really sad way for one of the all-time greats to bow out of the Olympics.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: This is huge news! Jamaica legend Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce has been listed as DNS in the women's 100m semi-final. No reason has come out yet about why she is not there. This was to be her final Olympics and she was running for her fifth consecutive medal in women's 100m.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: India captain Harmanpreet Singh has scored six goals thus far in these Paris Olympics. The only man with more is Australia's own drag flick specialist Blake Gover.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: Sixth seed Qinwen Zheng has won the women's singles gold! She beats Croatian 13th seed Donna Vekic 6-2, 6-3. What a journey this has been for Zheng. She had to beat top seed Iga Swiatek in the semi-final remember. Swiatek, by the way, took bronze.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: And this might apply in a literal sense as well - at 6.3 feet Viktor Axelsen is one of the tallest badminton players around. The court does look too small for him at times. Lakshya has played eight times against Axelsen and won just once.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: The legend continues. Simone Biles with a truly mind boggling routine that gives her a score of 15.300. Brazil's Rebeca Andrade wins silver with 14.966 while Biles's USA teammate Jade Carey wins bronze with 14.466.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: You may remember that the India yesterday beat Australia 3-2 in a truly spectacular display of hockey. They started this campaign looking very shaky but they didn't suffer any losses during that period. Now they end it with an admirable performance against defending champions and a first ever win in an Olympic match against Australia since Munich 1972.

Speaking of which, the Olympics Khel twitter handle was kind enough to release some footage from that game. Hope you feasted your eyes on that.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: There is no Shericka Jackson but her fellow Jamaican, the legendary Shelly-Anne Fraser Price, and American Sha'Carri Richardson are among the medal winners at the 2023 Worlds still in the fray in women's 100m. That gives us an excuse to watch that incredibl race and why not.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: Sunday will be pretty much the opposite of what today is like for the Indian contingent. Well, the first half of it at least.

2022 World Championships silver medallist Anish Bhanwala and Asian Games bronze medallist Vijayveer Sidhu have the first stage of 25m rapid fire pistol men's qualification starting at 12.30pm IST. Then comes a humdinger of a hockey quarterfinal between India and Great Britain at 1.30pm. Lovlina Borgohain will be vying for a second Olympic medal in the women's 75kg quarterfinals at 3.02pm IST.

Sometime after 3.30, Lakshya Sen has the unenviable task of trying to get past defending Olympic champion Viktor Axelsen, having already made history by becoming the first Indian to get this far at the Olympics in men's badminton. And so that is some ridiculously important matches packed into the first half of the day. If you are planning to have a Sunday outing, schedule it for the evening.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: You may have noticed that it is a little quiet out here today from an Indian perspective and that is because, apart from the skeet shooters, the sailors and the golfers in their qualification events, there isn't much on show today from an Indian perspective, although what was there were huge with Manu Bhaker's final and Deepika Kumari's campaign. We will also see Nishant Dev facing Mexican second seed Marco Alonso Verde Alvarez in men's 71kg boxing quarterfinals. A win there would guarantee Nishant a medal but he is facing the second seed and so it will be a big challenge.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: Lim Sihyeon has won the women's archery gold. She beat Nam Suhyeon, who had defeated Deepika Kumari in the quarterfinals, in the gold medal match. Lim has won golds in women's team, mixed team and individual and that means that she has not lost a single match that she has played at the Paris Olympics.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: She was up against it this time, a tough draw and finally she succumbed to the top seed. "I promise this isn’t the end. I’ll return home to recover and clear my mind. This dream is still alive, and I will continue to chase it with renewed passion. This is not goodbye but a promise to return, to fight harder, and to make you all proud," she says.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: India's Maheshwari Chauhan is in 8th place with a score of 71/75 at the end of the first day of women's skeet shooting qualifications. The top six shooters qualify for the final and there are two rounds of 25 targets left tomorrow, but she's still well in contention to qualify. Raiza Dhillon, the other Indian in the fray, is currently in 25th place, with a score of 66/75.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: Well we have seen a lot of selfies from Indian athletes with the likes of Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal and other international sporting greats over the years during the Olympics. We have also seen an Indian athlete competing for a third medal at the same Olympics, which was quite unexpected. Add this to the list of unexpected things happening at the Olympics - India's only representative at equestrian at the Olympics posting a pic with Snoop Dogg.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: Armand Duplantis has soared into the men's singles pole vault final with a jump of 5.75m. The 24-year-old is looking to defend the gold he won at Tokyo 2020. He has won the last two world championships and , it will be the shock of shocks if he doesn't win a gold in Paris as well.

Paris Olympics 2024 Day 8 Live Updates: Leon Marchand becomes the first male swimmer since American record-breaker Michael Phelps at Beijing 2008 to win four individual golds in a single Games. His haul in major competitions thus far are four Olympic gold medals, in a single edition of the Games, and five World Championship golds. Three of those came at Fukoka 2023 and two at Budapest 2022.