Third Olymic medal to india, Saina wins bronze

London: Saina Nehwal on saturday created history by becoming the first Indian to win an Olympic Games bronze medal in badminton, though under fortuitous circumstances, as her world number two Chinese opponent retired from the play-off because of a knee injury.

Saina’s opponent Wang, the World No. 2, won the first game despite the injury she suffered at the end of it. She won the first game 21-18, but before claiming the final point, she strained her knee. Wang received medical attention before claiming the game, but broke down soon into the second game – with the score 1-0 in her favour – before she hobbled off the court.

Devendro’s Round-of-16 bout followed soon after and he hammered his Mongolian opponent Serdamba Purevdorj 16-11 to move into the quarter-finals. Another win for the Indian will ensure a bronze for him, as both the losing semi-finalists end on the podium in Olympic boxing.
Saina saved four game points in a dramatic fightback in the first game and was 18-20 when left-handed Xin twisted her knee while going for an acrobatic smash from the baseline. She took on-court treatment for the injury after that.

With the addition of Saina`s bronze, India`s medal collection in the ongoing Olympics has gone upto three with pistol shooter Vijay Kumar (silver) and seasoned marksman Gagan Narang (bronze) being the other medal winners.

The packed Wembly arena, which had a seizable chunk of vociferous Indian supporters cheering for Saina, were taken by surprise when the script suddenly changed with Wang getting injured towards the very end of the first game.

In athletics, runner Sudha Singh crashed out after failing to qualify for the final of the women’s 3000m steeplechase. She could only managed a 13th place out of the 15 runners who ran the first heat on Saturday. Sudha, a gold medal winner in the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games, clocked 9:48.86.

India’s campaign in the rowing event also came to a dismal end as the men’s doubles sculls team of Sandeep Kumar and Manjeet Singh finished 19th. They avoided getting the wooden spoon by defeating the Egyptian team of Mohamed Nofel and Omar Emira with a timing of 7:08.39 secs.

India’s challenge in tennis at the London Olympics ends as Leander Paes-Sania Mirza lose to the Belarus pair of Max Mirnyi and Victoria Azarenka 5-7, 6-7 in the mixed doubles quarter-finals.

As a recap of India’s tennis event, Bhupathi-Bopanna and Paes-Vardhan lost in the second round of the men’s doubles; Sania-Rushmi lost in the first round of the women’s doubles; and Somdev and Vardhan lost in the first round of men’s singles.

Elsewhere in athletics, India’s Irfan Thodi finished a creditable 10th in the men’s 20km Race Walk competition with a new national record in the London Olympics. Irfan clocked 1::20:21 in the race participated by 56 walkers, bettering the old national record of 1::20.35 in the name of Gurmeet Singh.

Gurmeet finished 33rd with a timing of 1::23:34 while the third Indian in the fray, Baljinder Singh was 43rd in 1::25:39.

Meanwhile, discus thrower Krishna Poonia failed to get a medal for India as she finished 7th with her best throw being 63.62m. Croatia’s Sandra Perkovic’s throw travelled 69.11m to fetch her gold.

Late on Saturday night, Indian boxer Manoj Kumar bowed out after a 20-16 pre-quarters defeat by Great Britain’s third-seeded Thomas Stalker in the 64kg category.