The Indian athletes have been having a good run at the Olympics this year. The 5th day of Rio Olympics saw the women archers from the country move to the next round in the individual events. Jiu Rai’s disappointing loss at the Olympics was soon forgotten by boxer Manoj Kumar’s performance, who scripted an unexpected win as the underdog.
India was expecting a medal from Jitu Rai, but his ouster from the 50m air pistol qualifier put an end to that dream. The Indian women’s hockey team also put in a disappointing show in their match against Australia, where they lost 1-6. However, things started looking up as the fifth day of the Rio Olympics progressed.
India’s Laishram Bombayla Devi and Deepika Kumari moved onto the pre-quarter final round in the women’s individual recurve event. Bombayla Devi is making her third appearance in the Olympics, and she finished 24th after a dominant performance against Chinese Taipei’s Lin Shih-Chia. She defeated Lin Shih-Chia after beating Laurence Baldauff from Austria.
Deepika Kumari also put up an excellent show against Italy’s Sartori Guendalina. Deepika moved into the round of 16 after defeating Georgia’s Kristine Esebua in the round of 32.
Deepika Kumari had made her first Olympic appearance in London, where she had lost in the first round. This time she has come out stronger and has been registering an impressive show in each of her rounds.
The joy for team India increased when Manoj Kumar secured a 2-1 win against Evaldas Petrauskas, who won the bronze at the London Olympics. Manoj Kumar’s successful win in the first round of light welterweight (64kg) category keeps India’s hopes for medals alive.
The fifth day at the Rio Olympics continued to see the Americans reigning over the medal count. They finished the day with a total of 32 medals in their kitty. As expected, Katie Ledecky went on to win the gold medal in the 4X200 relay.The US clinched the silver in the men’s saber with Daryl Homer putting up an impressive show.
Daryl Homer fenced with Aron Szilagyi from Hungary and became the first American to win silver in saber since Peter Westbrook won the bronze, back in 1984. He missed out on the chance to become the first American to win gold in the category.
American cyclist Kristin Armstrong made sure that the gold count for her country increased with a third gold medal in the individual road time trial. She is the first athlete to win the gold medal in the same event for three consecutive years.
According to The New York Times, Armstrong is just a day away from her 43rd birthday, and she spoke out against all those who believe that athletes should retire after a particular age.
When NBC won the rights to telecast the Olympics, they had hoped that the viewership for the 17-day sporting event in Rio would be more than what they had seen during the London Games.
Given the kind of performance the team USA is putting forward and the interesting turn in some of the games, the NBC was confident of clinching their goal of 32 million viewership.
Things, however, do not look quite that good. NBC has seen a massive fall in the viewership since the last Olympics. The opening ceremony itself saw the viewership fall by 35%. While the viewership hasn’t been bad and is steady, it has dropped by 20% to 28.6 million from the 35.6 million that they had seen during the London Olympics.