YOG: Poor Day For Indian Athletes

After winning 5 medals in the last in the first week in the Summer Youth Olympic Games 2010, Indian contingent had nothing much to cheer on the 8th day. The win of boxer Shiva Thapa in the men’s bantamweight semifinals was the only glitter of hope for the Indian side.Thapa will now fight the final bout against Robasy Elloy Ramirez of Cuba for the gold medal. Earlier Yuki Bhambri, Prannoy HS and Arjun Singh showed much promise of a gold medal before finally losing at the final hurdle. The other Indian boxer Vikash Krishnan lost his semifinal bout and now will fight for bronze against Daniel Echeverria of Mexico on tuesday.

Singapore Youth Olympic Games

In the other fields the Indian participants had disappointing results. Shooter Navdeep Singh Rathore finished 8th in the boys’ 10m air rifle event. He had the same position in the qualifying held this morning. Kuldeep Kumar could not finish his race in the men’s 10,000m walk while Indrajeet Patel finished 11th in the boy’s 3000m final.

Table Tennis player Avik Das had another disappointing day after being out of medal contention yesterday when he lost both his matches today against Elmurod Holikov of Uzbekistan and Louis Mejia of El Salvador. In girls section Mallika Bhandarkar had a similar fate as she lost her match to Mercedes Magyvaradi of Hungary. The men’s basketball team registered a win against South Africa by a margin of 27-11 in an almost inconsequential match.

At the end of the day, China (24-14-4), Russia (16-13-10) and (9-2-2) are at the top three positions in the medal tally. India is at the 47th position position with 4 silver and a bronze.