Olympic Diary : Day 5

Badmintongate , Wiggins to the fore , More splashes in the Pool 

Badmintongate headlined day 5 at the Games. All and sundry had a go at China , Indonesia and the other traditional powerhouses of the sport after 4 women’s doubles teams were eliminated from the competition for deliberately throwing away matches in order to garner more favourable knockout pairings. While I can only speculate on how congenial the atmosphere is for Chinese athletes who return back from the games without a medal (especially in a sport they’ve dominated), the blame must be laid squarely on the daft tournament rules. Can you imagine a round robin format in a tennis grand slam tournament – under the pretext of giving more playing time to lower ranked players. The only tennis tournament which has a round-robin format is the season ending Maters Tournament where only the top 8 in the world feature. Even there it is unthinkable that Roger Federer might even contemplate throwing away a match to ensure he doesn’t meet Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic in the Semi-final. The fiasco speaks about the prevalent sporting ethos in the game of badminton in general , and when 8 top players are thus found indulging surely many others given a suitable opportunity would do just the same.

The scandal pretty much overshadowed a few exceptional performances in the field. Shortly after Heather Stanning and Helen Glover gave the hosts a much awaited 1^st gold in rowing , Tour de France champion Bradley Wiggins comfortably eased to victory in the mens individual time trial , with trusty Team Sky and GB lieutenant , Chris Froome taking the bronze. Wiggins thus became the most decorated Olympian in British history and is odds on to pick up a knighthood before the year is out. In an action replay finish to the men’s 200 m, Aussie ‘Missile’ James Magnussen was pipped at the final touch by American Nathan Adrian in the blue riband event , the 100 m freestyle. Hungarian Dan Gyurta pocketed a world record and the gold in the men’s 200 m breaststroke while the US 4 x 200 m women’s freestyle team comfortably took home the gold.

Indians in Disarray : multiple eliminations followed for the Indians including the men’s doubles , world number 1 archer Deepika Kumari. The hockey team turned in a shambolic performance and were thrashed by the black sticks of new Zealand. The only bright spots were the performances of Saina Nehwal and P Kshyap who booked quarter final berths for themselves , Saina looking especially comfortable in her straight sets victory.

Eyesore of the day : The garish ‘throne’ podium for the men’s and women’s individual cycling time trial....really ????