Tokyo Olympics: India's champions arrive as opening date approaches

As the Olympic games approach, Indian champions are gearing up for the competition, with a select handful preparing and arriving in Tokyo.

Hockey 

A day before their departure to Tokyo for the Olympic Games, the men's hockey team, the men's double pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, and gymnast Pranati Nayak had their final training sessions on Friday.

The hockey teams had a lengthy session on Friday morning and gave final touches to their preparations for the mega event as they are scheduled to leave Bengaluru for New Delhi on their way to Tokyo as part of the 90-member first batch.

Gymnastics

Pranati had a session at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium in New Delhi under the watchful eye of coach Laxman Manohar Sharma. Pranati had made the cut as the lone Indian gymnast for the Olympics based on an Asian quota as the Senior Asian Championship scheduled in China was called off due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Badminton 

Badminton players Rankireddy and Shetty got into action at the Gacchibowli Stadium in Hyderabad under the guidance of Mathias Boe of Denmark, India's doubles coach. Rankireddy and Shetty are in a tough Group A in the men's doubles competition at the Olympics, paired in a group that includes world No.1 Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo and Marcus Fernaldi Gideon of Indonesia, Chen Yang/Wang Chi-Lin of Chinese Taipei, and Ben Lane/Sean Vendy of Great Britain.

WeightLifting 

Saikhom Mirabai Chanu, India's lone contestant in weightlifting and a top medal contender in women's 49kg, reached Tokyo on Friday and settled down in the Olympic Village.

Mirabai, who had a lengthy rehabilitation-cum-training camp in the USA, started from St Louis on Thursday afternoon and landed at the Narita international airport in Tokyo on Friday afternoon.

Mirabai, coach Vijay Sharma, and other support staff soon sent out, through the Sports Authority of India (SAI), photographs of them eating in the Dining Hall of the Games Village.

Mirabai, who will be competing in her second Olympics at Tokyo, has set a world record in clean and jerk at the Asian Championships in April. She is ranked No.2 in the Race to Tokyo list behind China's Hou Zhuhai, who has the best total of 213 kg (96 snatches, 117 clean & jerk). Mirabai has a season-best of 205kg (86 snatch, 119 clean & jerk).

Meanwhile, the 15-member Indian shooting contingent reached Amsterdam on its way to Tokyo from Zagreb, Croatia, where it had a camp since the middle of June. It is scheduled to reach Tokyo early on Saturday morning.

The boxing squad is also on its way to Tokyo from Assisi in Italy where it had a lengthy training camp. The nine boxers, coaches and support staff to are expected to reach Tokyo on Saturday morning.

Tennis 

 India's second-highest ranked singles tennis player Sumit Nagal on Friday qualified for the Tokyo Olympics after the organisers lowered the cut-off due to a spate of withdrawals.

The 23-year-old Nadal ranked 154th in the world according to the latest ATP rankings, is currently in Germany, where he lost the Round-of-32 match in the Hamburg European Open to Juan Pablo Varillas of Peru.

Nadal expressed his joy at making the Tokyo cut, tweeting on Friday, "No words can express my emotions. A surreal feeling to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics. Grateful to all your support and wishes."

If the 23-year-old Nagal can complete formalities in the next few days, he can hope to compete in two events in Tokyo -- singles and mixed doubles partnering with either Sania Mirza or Ankita Raina.

He can also play men's doubles if the All India Tennis Association's (AITA) last-minute move to pair him with seasoned doubles player Rohan Bopanna is accepted by the International Tennis Federation (ITF). India's original doubles combination of Bopanna and Divij Sharan is fourth on the alternate list for Tokyo but with ITF giving preference to already qualified singles players for doubles, AITA replaced Sharan with Nagal.

Yuki Bhambri to miss

India's highest-ranked singles player Yuki Bhambri, with a protected ranking of 127, could not go as he is still recuperating from the procedure on his knee.

Nadal, who had reached the second round of the US Open in 2020, initially couldn't make the grade on June 14, the last cut-off date for Olympic qualification, as he was then ranked 144th in the world. But due to a surge in withdrawals, including several high-profile ones such as Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal among others due to Covid fears, lower-ranked players like Nagal got upgraded.

Several players, such as Australia's No. 1 Alex De Minaur, too have withdrawn after contracting the virus. Compatriot Prajnesh Gunneswaran (current ATP rank 153) could also get a chance to compete at the Olympics if some more players withdraw. Gunneswaran too had missed the cut on June 14 as he was ranked 148 on the ATP then.

Before this development, only Sania and Raina were entered in the women's doubles at the Olympics.