The 33rd Olympic Games will begin with a bang today (Friday) in the French capital, Paris. More than 10 thousand players from 206 countries are participating in this. A total of 329 races are conducted across 32 sports.
117 men and women have been included in the Indian team participating in the Paris Olympics. 70 male and 47 female athletes are participating in 16 sports including Archery, Athletics, Badminton, Boxing, Equestrian, Aggie, Golf, Judo, Rowing, Sailing, Shooting, Swimming, Table Tennis, Tennis, Weightlifting and Wrestling.
The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics will take place at 11 pm IST on the River Seine. In a unique twist, this time the opening ceremony was arranged to be held outside the stadium, on the River Seine, which flows through Paris.
In the inaugural parade, the sportsmen and women will travel 6 kilometers in about 100 boats. It has been announced that table tennis player Sarath Kamal and badminton player BV Sindhu will carry the national flag on behalf of India in the opening ceremony.
Following this, the Paris Olympic Games will be held from tomorrow Saturday. India will compete first in the shooting competition. At the Tokyo Olympics, most shooting qualifiers and finals were held on different days. But, with a slight difference from that, on the first day, both of these will be repeated in the 10m air rifle mixed team.
Two pairs of India’s trusted partners, Ramita Jindal-Arjun Babuta and Ilavenil Valarivan-Sandeep Singh, will be competing in the match. The top 4 teams in the qualifiers will then advance to the medal round. The gold/silver medal match will be played between the 1st and 2nd placed pairs from the qualifiers. Meanwhile the bronze medal match will be between 3rd and 4th places. After the disappointments in Rio and Tokyo, the shooters will be looking to give India a win.
Also, Arjun Singh Seema, Sarajboth Singh, Manu Bakar and Ritam Sangwan will compete in the 10m air pistol event. However, only qualifying rounds are scheduled for this tournament on Saturday.
A crucial opening match awaits the Indian men’s hockey team in the league stage against New Zealand. And with tougher matches coming up, they can’t afford to start slow. Lakshya Sen, Sadhvik-Chirag and Ashwini-Tanisha are playing Badminton group-stage matches.
Shooting:
10m Air Rifle Mixed Team Qualification (Ramita-Arjun, Ilavenil-Sandeep): 12.30 pm (IST)
10m Air Rifle Mixed Team Bronze Medal / Gold Medal Competitions (if qualified): 2 pm (IST)
10m Air Pistol Men’s Qualification (Arjun Singh Seema, Sarajbot Singh): 2 pm (IST)
10m Air Pistol Women’s Qualification (Manu Pakkar, Ritham Sangwan): 4 pm (IST)
Hockey
India vs New Zealand: 9 pm (IST)
Badminton
Men’s Singles L (Lakshya Sen vs Kevin Gordon): 7.10 pm (IST)
Men’s Doubles Group C (Sathwick-Chirag vs Gorvi-Laber): 8 pm (IST)
Women’s Doubles Group C (Ashwini-Tanisha vs Kim-Kong): 11.50 pm (IST)
Boxing:
Women’s 54kg Prelims Round 32 (Preity vs Thee Kim Ah Wo): 12:02 am (IST) (July 28)
Rowing:
Men’s Single Sculls Heats (Balraj Panwar, Heat 1): 12.30 pm (IST)
Table Tennis:
Men’s Singles Prelims (Harmeet Desai vs Zayed Abo Yaman): 7.15 pm (IST)
Tennis:
Men’s Doubles First Round (Balaji-Bopanna vs Repol-Roge Vaselin): 4.30 pm (IST) (2nd Match on Court 12).
