Day 2 was quite a challenge. Mirabai Chanu surely made India proud by winning a silver medal in weightlifting, but India was not able to improve their medal tally on day 2. This made Indian fans more eager for day 3. Day 3 of the Tokyo Olympics 2020 was quite interesting as our women Indian athletes and other athletes too played very well. Let’s have a look at day 3 highlights:
Mary Kom won in the opening round of the 51 kg category against Dominican Republic’s Miguelina Hernandez Gracia. Mary Kom is a 2012 Olympic bronze medalist who fought against 15 years her junior and Pan American Games bronze medalist. So the game was really quite interesting to see from the beginning till the end of the game. Mary Kom defeated Miguelina Hernandez by 4-1. In the opening round, both were fighting quite fiercely but Mary Kom knocked at Hernandez’s face, so the score was 3-2. The same goes for round two as they both fought well but in round 2 Mary Kom won with two cards and Hernandes had one. In the final round, Mary Kom knocked more punches on her and hence she won by 4-1.
PV Sindhu entered the Tokyo Olympic campaign with a great win. In the straight games in the women’s single group J match, she had an easy win against Ksenia Polikarpova of Israel. PV Sindhu defeated her by 21-7, 21-10 in a lop-sided opening match. On asking about the match to PV Sindhu she replied that even though the match was quite easy, she is still focused and preparing for every single point of the match. She further mentioned that people will definitely see a different Sindhu as she has been hard-working throughout the years and it’s the time to show it. She will next have a match with Hongkong’s Cheung Ngan Yi in the group stage.
For India, the Tokyo Olympics table tennis game on Sunday was a great success. Manika Batra played really well. Manika Batra, 62 ranked in the world competed against Margaryta Pesotska for almost 57 minutes then Manika defeated her by 4-3 (4-11,4-11,11-7,12-10,8-11,11-5,11-7). Manika Batra had an amazing comeback in her game and successfully defeated the higher-ranked opponent. In the first two games of the match, Manika struggled and lost both in 10 minutes. Playing 7 games Manika created history as her points were kinda low at the starting but then increased within an hour and she won successfully. Also, Manika created history as she became the first Indian table tennis player to reach the third round. It is really a great achievement as she won against the world’s no. 32 player, Margaryta Pesotska from Ukraine.
Also, these were some of the best achievements of day 3, India also faced some failures. Sania Mirza and Ankita Raina lost the women’s doubles after losing 6-0, 6-7(0), 8- 10 to the Kichenok twins. Gymnast Pranati Nayak also failed to qualify for all-around finals. India’s men’s hockey team was also defeated by Australia.
