My predictions for the Indian contingent at London 2012

With a day and a half left for the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics, i thought this is a good time to give my predictions for the Indian contingent.

This Olympics is a weird one for the Indian fan. We had absolutely no hopes from the athletes in the last games and they surprised us with a 3 medal haul including a gold. In the intervening 4 years, our boxers have scaled heights in the international arena, our shooters are reigning world champions and world record holders, our archers are not too shabby, and our hockey team actually qualified for the Olympics. This is reason enough to feel confident, add in the fact that “Mixed doubles” is actually included as a medal event in tennis and Saina Nehwal is hitting her peak and we are actually looking forward to this Olympics with hope instead of the resignation we are normally accustomed to.

So, here is my preview of team India’s campaign. All data is taken from this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_at_the_2012_Summer_Olympics

Sport	Men	Women	Events
Archery	3	3	4
Athletics	8	6	11
Badminton	2	3	4
Boxing	7	1	8
Field hockey	16	0	1
Judo	0	1	1
Rowing	3	0	2
Shooting	7	4	9
Swimming	1	0	1
Table tennis	1	1	2
Tennis	5	2	4
Weightlifting	1	1	2
Wrestling	4	1	5
13 sports	58	23	54

The best way to look at our prospects is to divide the sports into “Good Chance”, “Fair Chance”, and “No Chance”

Let’s start with “No Chance” and work our way up.

No Chance:

Rowing, Swimming, Table Tennis, Weightlifting and Athletics (to a large extent) are the events in which i feel India has no chance of coming back with a medal.

 

The Indian rowing team did well to qualify by finishing high up in the Asian qualifiers. But i don’t see them winning any medals here.

India failed to qualify even a single swimmer for the Olympics and a “quota” place was given to India.

Table Tennis remains the domain of the Chinese and Koreans.

Athletics will remain a perennial failing for India.

Fair Chance:

Judo, Tennis, Field Hockey, Archery

I am including Judo here, because it is a sport which depends heavily on the luck of the draw. And with “Repechage” rules in effect, a loss in an early round does not mean the end of the road. The rest will depend on whether Garima Chaudhary can put in the performance of a lifetime or not.

Tennis would have been under “Good chance” prior to the whole Paes-Bhupathi controversy. But, i still see the mixed doubles contest as a potential medal winner. Hopefully Devvarman should give a good performance on the singles side. Bhupathi-Bopanna are seeded 7th which should ensure a quarterfinal spot at the very least for them.

Archery, especially the team events, will be the real wildcard i feel. The team has had enough time to practice, they arrived early and have been out at Lords continuously racking up training hours and may be a good bet. The individual events, on the other hand, i feel will not provide any medals.

Field Hockey is back, for India at least. The only problem is that we have been drawn with Holland and Germany in group B. In order to progress to the semi-finals the team needs to beat at least one of them, or hold both of them to draws at least. These are the 2 matches which will decide the Olympics as far as field hockey is concerned.

Good Chance:

Shooting, Badminton, Boxing, Wrestling

This is the group which will have the most media scrutiny on them since almost our entire medal tally is predicted to come from these sports. The news will be saturated with coverage prior to these events, hopefully the expectations will be met.

Saina Nehwal, world Rank #5, an easy draw for the first 2 rounds means that a quarterfinal place is virtually guaranteed in women’s singles. A similar situation, on a smaller scale, is playing out in the women’s doubles for Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa. These will be the best chances of a medal for India in a court sport.

After making “Repechage” India’s favorite word 4 years ago, Sushil Kumar is once again one of the medal favorites. The other wrestlers will be hoping to make a mark as well.

Boxing and Shooting together look to account for a lot of medal hopefuls. It is really tough to single anyone out as a favorite for a medal, but this is Mary Kom’s first and probably last shot at an Olympic medal and it would be nice to see her win one.

 

Final prediction (being conservative):

Tennis – 1 medal

Badminton – 1 medal

Shooting – 2 medals

Boxing – 1 medal

Wrestling – 1 medal

Total haul – 6 medals

So i am predicting a doubling of the medal count. How much of this is based in fact, and how much in hope i don’t know. But we are in for some amazing feats over the next few weeks. Let’s hope the athletes come back with more than my prediction.

Comments? Agree/Disagree? Let me know.

Until Next Time,

K.C.G