Sunday was dominated by Indian sportswomen at RIO with mixed performances. The most disappointing was Heena’s pistol shooting. She didn’t use her London experience to stay calm and confident. Hope she will use her yesterday’s experience to do better in her next event (25M) tomorrow. Deepika’s girls started very well by defeating Columbia but the team effort wasn’t good enough go past Russians. Deepika and Bombayla look relaxed and confident and I am sure they will do well in individual round starting today.

Most heartening story was of Deepa Karmarkar moving into the final. Initially she looked little lost in the mixed team group but performed very confidently on the floor. More than skills she carries her attitude and pride to represent India. Hockey girls started shaky but recovered well in the second half to tie with Japanese. They need to plug holes in their defence to go far ahead and also, they seem to be struggling to cope with the speed sometimes.

Our Women’s Doubles lead by world no 1 Sania met the same feat as Men’s Doubles. They did give some fight but not good enough. I guess Sania has come prepared only for Mixed Doubles.

I am still bullish to get at last 3 medals from shooting range. Although, Jitu and Heena both have another chance at the range but I feel Gagan and Abhinav need to take the initiative today in the 10M air rifle and inspire the rest of the team to deal with Olympics stage fear.

Both the hockey teams have tough matches today and I feel if Men’s team play their original game they will do well against Germany.

Our lone Swimmers will get a chance to mingle with world class talent today in the pools, however, we don’t expect any surprises from any of them.