Olympics: Vijender, Kashyap and Ghosh lift gloom on Day 1

London: Victories to boxer vijender Singh, shuttler P Kashyap and paddler Soumyajit Ghosh lifted the gloom over the Indian camp on the first day of the London Olympics 2012 even as archery, shooting, weightlifting and tennis disappointed.

Kashyap won his first Group match of the men's singles badminton when he beat Tan Yuhan of Belgium in straight games 21-14, 21-12. Ghosh defeated Gustavo Tsuboi 11-9, 14-12, 7-11, 12-10, 5-11, 12-10 in the men's singles first round table tennis match.

Vijender beat Danabek Suzhanov of Kazakhstan 14-10 in the men's 75 kg Middleweight category. The 26-year-old Indian pugilist had an upperhand over his opponent throughout the match. He won the first round 5-4, second 4-3 and the final 5-3 to take the match-winning four-point lead.

The Indian camp got some cheer from Vijender, Kashyap and Ghosh victories, while archery, shooting and tennis disappointed.

However, the opening day of the XXX Olympic Games began on a disappointing note for India as the mixed doubles badminton pair of Jwala Gutta and V Diju lost their first group match. Gutta and Diju lost their Group C match in straight games 21-16, 21-12 to the Indonesian team of Ahmad Tontowi and Liliyan Natsir. Each team will play three games before the knockouts.

But the more disappointing news came from the archery venue at Lord's where the Indian team lost to Japan in a tense shoot-off after both teams were locked 214 after the regulation 24 arrows. The men's archery team of Tarundeep Rai, Rahul Banerjee and Jayanta Talukdar was knocked out in the pre-quarter-finals (1/8 Elimination Round).

The three men archers will now be seen in action in the individual elimination rounds that will commence on Monday.

Meanwhile, Indian challenge in women's table tennis ended in the first round itself as Ankita Das crashed out losing 1-4 to Spain's Sara Ramirez at the ExCel centre.

The 24-year-old Spaniard, though, did not allow Ankita any chance to launch an offensive as she won the first three games 11-9 11-8 11-7 in just 19 minutes. Ankita kept the Indian hopes alive winning the fourth game 11-8, but her abject surrender in the fifth and decisive game (11-2) proved fatal for her chances.

And India's day continued to go from bad to worse as Swarn Singh finished fourth in the men's singles sculls heat with a timing of 6:54.04. Swarn Singh will now have to fight it out in repechage.

Shooter Vijay Kumar's challenge in the 10m Air Pistol event failed to take off as he finished a disappointing 31st in the qualification round to bow out. In his six rounds, Vijay shot scores of 94, 95, 94, 97, 97 and 93 for a total score of 570. India's major shooting hopes, though, remain Abinav Bindra, Gagan Narang and Ronjan Sodhi.

News from the boxing ring wasn't encouraging as well, sending further gloom into the Indian camp. Young sensation Shiva Thapa was sent crashing out by Mexico's Oscar Valdez 14-9 in the Bantamweight Round of 32. India have sent their biggest ever boxing contingent to the Olympics with a total of seven boxers, including Beijing bronze medallist Vijender Singh.

Later in the day, Gutta returned for her doubles' match with partner Ashwini Ponappa but the duo lost their Group B tie to China’s M Fujii and R Kakiiwa.

The Indian pair seemed struggling against the Chinese opponent and suffered an embarrassing 21-16, 21-18 defeat.

In women's weightlifting, Soniya Chanu failed to produce her best effort as she finished seventh in the 48kg event.

Chanu lifted a total of 171kg - 74kg in snatch and 97kg in clean and jerk - to take the seventh spot in the 12-lifter field. The gold was won by Mingjuan Wang of China who lifted a total of 205kg (91+114). The silver and bronze went to Japanese Hiromi Miyake and Chun Hwa Ryang of North Korea who lifted 197kg (87+110) and 192kg (80+112) respectively.

In another disappointing result for the Indians, women's doubles pair of Sania Mirza and Rushmi Chakarvarthi were knocked out of the tennis competition. The duo was beaten by Chia-Jung Chuang and Su-Wei Hsieh of Chinese Taipei in the opening round.

The Indian pair battled hard but were finally defeated 1-6, 6-3, 1-6 in 91 minutes at the Wimbledon grass court.

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