Paris Olympics: From ‘heats’ to ‘PC’ with ‘repechage’ and more in between, key terms to know ahead of 2024 Games | Olympics

The fact that cricket is the most watched sport in India doesn’t necessarily need to be qualified by hard numbers. However, Ormax Media, a research firm based in Mumbai, did just that in a report published in March this year, in which it further said that football comes a distant second after cricket, followed closely by Kabaddi and the top five is rounded off by professional wrestling (WWE) and hockey.

None of these sports, apart from hockey, are relevant when it comes to the Paris Olympics, which starts on July 26. Not from an Indian sense, at least, since the country’s football teams haven’t qualified.

The fact that hockey is behind pro wrestling on that list indicates that a vast majority of viewers could be scratching their heads while watching the Indian men’s team gun for a first Olympic gold medal since 1980. Wrestling is there, but even casual sports followers would know there would be no Royal Rumble in Paris.

If you are among those in the country who need a rundown on the key terms you might be hearing between July 26 and August 11, go ahead and bookmark this page, we won’t mind. If you aren’t, well, thanks for hanging around till here.

Heats: Here is a term that most living in India would be more than aware of from a climatic perspective, but it is slightly different in sports. Specifically used in track, rowing, swimming and canoeing events, it mostly denotes the first round of the race. Athletes tend to be grouped into multiple heats in track events, since there is a limit on the number of athletes who can race at a time. This is followed by semifinals and finals.

Dressage: Anush Agarwalla will be the only Indian equestrian at Paris 2024 and he is competing in dressage, one of three events that make up the sport in the Olympics. In dressage, the horse and the rider are judged on how well they can perform a series of predetermined set of movements from memory within a standard arena. The routines are set to music and judges evaluate the fluidity and ease with which the routine is performed. Agility, technique and coordination form the core of dressage.

Ippon: Tulika Maan is the sole Indian representative in judo and if she manages to throw an opponent on their back, pin them for 20 seconds or force a submission via choke or joint lock, the bout is ended right there and she will walk away with a 10 -0 win. In the world of judo, that is a win by ippon. The term is also used in other Japanese martial arts such as karate and jujitsu, but it is only judo that is part of the Olympic roster.

RSC: RSC stands for referee stops contest. So why isn’t it just called referee stops contest? Well, you could extend that question into why isn’t it just called the Indian Premier League, or the Indian Super League, or why abbreviations exist at all so let’s not go there. In a boxing match, when referees stop a bout when they feel the losing boxer is no longer able to protect themselves due to the pumelling they have taken, they end the bout right there. It denotes as comprehensive a victory as it gets for the winner. For those familiar with pro boxing, yes, it is similar to a technical knockout (TKO).

Repechage: Repechage is a term you’ll hear a lot during wrestling bouts but it’s also used in track and rowing as well. In wrestling, if an athlete loses at any stage and the opponent they lose to goes on to reach the final, they will then have a chance to win bronze via repechage. How many bouts they will have to fight to get to the bronze medal depends on the stage at which they lost their first match. If they lose in the semifinal, they directly qualify for a bronze medal match. If it was the quarters, they would have to fight two bouts to win bronze and the number increases the further back you go.

For example, Sakshi Malik lost in the 1/4 finals, or the quarterfinals to Russia’s Valeria Koblova in women’s 58kg at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Koblova went on to reach the final after winning her next match, which means Sakshi was eligible to win bronze if she won two more bouts, just as how Koblova became eligible to win gold upon winning two more bouts after beating Sakshi. The opponents that Koblova beat in the two rounds before the quarters faced off in the first repechage round and the winner faced Sakshi. The Indian won that bout and then faced the wrestler whom Koblova beat in the semifinal. Sakshi won that bout as well and thus became the first Indian woman wrestler to win an Olympic medal.

It is a much simpler concept in track and rowing. The fastest of the athletes knocked out in the heats can still make it to the next round as the fastest loser.

PC: This might be the most familiar term in this list since it is a hockey but for the uniniated or unsure, PC stands for penalty corner. For India, whenever a PC comes around, expect captain Harmanpreet Singh to take centre stage. There are a number of situations that can lead to the umpire awarding the attacking team a PC but broadly, it is given for a foul committed by the defending side inside the penalty circle, also called the “D”, since, well, it looks like a capital D, or inside the defensive 23-metre area.

Once it has been awarded, you will see an attacker, the pusher, waiting for the umpire’s whistle at the backline at least 10 metres from the goal-post on whichever side of goal the attacking team prefers. When the whistle goes off, the pusher hits the ball along the ground to a pair of his teammates at the edge of the circle. One of them traps the ball while the other, usually Harmanpreet for India, loads up a dragflick and tries to hit the ball into goal. You will also have four defenders wearing extra protection charging out from inside the goal as the shot is being taken. It is arguably the most dramatic sequence of play in a hockey match and how well a team takes their PCs tends to be the difference between victory and defeat.