Hectic day for India, in case Friday is dry day

The day at the Games was pretty profitable for India. Four medals from shooting, including a gold, two silvers from rowing, and a bronze from English billiards doubles.

The day at the Games was pretty profitable for India. Four medals from shooting, including a gold, two silvers from rowing, and a bronze from English billiards doubles. It would have been better had the women’s team finals been held today, but the rains have pushed it back by a day.

The court at the Khalifa International complex was a mess with pools of water and the courts generally soggy. Several portable blowers were pressed into service as were towels and mops, but every time it looked as if things were getting to be better, the rains spoiled it. Disgusted officials gave up after several hours and postponed the event.

Also among India’s schedule tomorrow are athletics and hockey. The men of the latter bunch are a pitiable lot, playing Oman with not even the luxury of a draw to stretch out in. The women are playing Hong Kong. With a defeat to China as baggage, theirs is the big task of scoring enough. As skipper Dilip Tirkey had said after the first match, versus Bangladesh, they need to be among the goals if it comes to a toss up at the end of the pool.

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That’s where the Koreans wait. Going by the Indian form, there is little one can really expect from coach Vasudevan Baskaran’s boys, but at least no injury fallouts.

The athletics gets off with the heats tomorrow, rain or no rain, and there is little likelihood of the 17 medals they won at Busan, including seven golds, being repeated.

There is a lot of hope on national shot put champion Navpreet Singh. His qualification throw has been 18.93 m, but that isn’t a very good throw at the Asian level these days. There is also hope on Punjab’s women’s hammer throwing champion Hardeep Kaur (60.79 m on last count), but being among the medals for her will be a trifle difficult.

So we should be falling back on Anju Bobby George in the long jump. It is not yet clear if she will also be in the triple jump but her experience in that event of late has been short. She has also done the 4x100m relay recently, but to many isn’t always the best. It was Anju herself who had ditched the triple jump to concentrate on the long, and reaped dividends. There are over 46 athletes present here and the real repertoire ends hereabouts.

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The athletes had booked practice at 5pm today. However, that was the time it was simply pouring. A tight day tomorrow, it seems, tennis notwithstanding.