India’s Paris Olympics Schedule for Saturday

PARIS: After a glittering opening ceremony, the Indian contingent will be in action in seven different sports on Saturday, with shooting, hockey, badminton and tennis being the most notable sports.

An action-packed Saturday begins for India with Balraj Panwar competing in the single sculls rowing event at 12:30pm.

Then the focus shifts to shooting, with the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team Qualification scheduled for 12:30 PM, where teams of Sandeep Singh/Elavenil Valarivan and Arjun Babuta/Ramita Jindal will be in action. The shooting action continues with the 10m Air Pistol Men and Women Qualifications scheduled for 2 PM and 4 PM respectively.

The air pistol qualifiers will see stars like Sarabjot Singh, Arjun Cheema, Manu Bhaker and Rhythm Sangwan in action. After some consistent shows in national and international events in the run-up to the Olympics, Team India would undoubtedly be a strong contender for a medal in each category.

A highlight for India today is the first round of the men’s doubles event, where India’s doubles star Rohan Bopanna teams up with world number 65 N Sriram Balaji for their first Olympic medal. The match starts at 3:30 pm.

Bopanna has won a Grand Slam tournament, namely the Australian Open men’s doubles tournament with Matthew Ebden of Australia. He wants to use his winning momentum, consistency and experience in his hunt for medals. At the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, he narrowly missed out on a medal when he played with Sania Mirza in the mixed doubles. However, he just missed out on finishing fourth.

The badminton season starts at 23:00. The matches for men’s singles and doubles and women’s doubles last until 17:30.

Men’s singles medal contender and Commonwealth Games champion Lakshya Sen, India’s top men’s doubles players Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty and women’s doubles players Tanisha Crasto and Ashwini Ponnappa are in the spotlight.

At 7:15 PM, Indian rower Harmeet Desai will be in action in the preliminary round of the men’s table tennis competition.

From 9pm onwards, the Indian hockey team, which the country has a proud history of in Olympic history, would battle for a medal in their Pool B match against a strong team from New Zealand.

After clinching bronze in Tokyo 2020 after more than 40 years, the Men in Blue are raring to go out and play fearlessly to change the colour of their medal to gold. At 00:02 am, the Indian boxing contingent will also kick off their campaign with Preeti set to compete in the 32nd round of the women’s 54kg category.