On the first day of Track and Field events at the London Olympics on Friday, India's medal hope Krishna Poonia qualified for the women's discus throw final round after finishing eighth in the qualification round. However, another Indian participant Seema Antil missed out by a whisker by finishing 13th.
Poonia hurled the one-kg discus to 63.54 metres to finish fifth in Group A, and eighth overall at the showpiece Olympic Stadium. Commonwealth Games Gold medallist Poonia thus became only the sixth Indian to make it to the final round of track and field events in Olympics after Milkha Singh, PT Usha, S Sriram, Gurbachan Singh Randhawa and Anju Bobby George. The final round of discus throw will be held today.
India's Vikas Krishan has bowed out of the 69 kg category of the boxing event. He was declared a winner against American Errol Spence in the quarterfinals.
But after the American team protested the result, the amateur boxing governing body, AIBA, overturned the decision and declared the American as the winner.
The morning at the Olympics on Friday ended in disappointment for the millions of Indian sports fans when shuttler Saina Nehwal was outclassed in two straight games by world Number One and top seed Yihan Wang of China in the semifinals.
However, Saina still has a chance to clinch the bronze in the event when she takes on world Number Two Xin Wang of China today in the play off.
Armyman Vijay Kumar lifted the sagging Indian spirits by clinching the silver medal in the men's 25 metre Rapid Fire Pistol event.
The 26-year-old army subedar, belonging to the 16th Dogra Regiment, displayed ice cool temperament to give the silver lining to India's stuttering campaign in the 40-shot final to finish runner-up behind gold medal winner Leuris Pupo of Cuba. Vijay Kumar found the target 30 times out of 40 attempts in the series comprising eight rounds of five shots each.
Kumar is the second Indian medal winner at London Games after fellow marksman Gagan Narang, who won the 10 metre air rifle bronze on Monday.
Another shooter Joydeep Karmakar narrowly missed out a bronze medal in the 50 metre rifle prone event after setting an Olympic record in the qualifying stage. Karmakar finished fourth with a tally of 699.1, which was just 1.9 adrift of bronze medal winner's score of 701.0. Gagan Narang could not make to the finals of the 50 metre rifle prone event.
The Mixed Doubles tennis quarterfinal match between India's Leander Paes and Sania Mirza and their Belarussian opponents was postponed because of fading light. The top seeded Belarussian pair of Max Mirnyi and Victoria Azarenka were leading 7-5, 3-2 when the play was called off. The match will resume today.
Shot putter Om Prakash Karhana and triple jumper Mayookha Johnny both failed to qualify for the final rounds.
In men's hockey, India went out of contention for a semifinal place after being routed 5-2 by Germany in Group B—their third successive defeat in the six-team pool.
India's lone participant in swimming, Gagan Ullalmath finished last in the men's 1,500m freestyle heats.
