{"id":1675,"date":"2016-08-21T01:14:45","date_gmt":"2016-08-21T01:14:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?p=1675"},"modified":"2016-08-22T07:19:23","modified_gmt":"2016-08-22T07:19:23","slug":"pv-sindhu-becomes-first-indian-woman-to-win-an-olympic-silver-medal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?p=1675","title":{"rendered":"PV Sindhu becomes first Indian woman to win an Olympic silver medal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rio<\/a>
Rio de Janeiro : India’s Sindhu Pusarla plays against Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara during a women’s singles semifinal match at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday. PTI Photo by Atul Yadav(PTI8_18_2016_000393a)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

PV SINDHU became India\u2019s first woman to win an Olympics silver medal on Friday, creating history and pulling an entire country out of its Games gloom with a stunning display of talent, power and grace.<\/p>\n

A nation watched, its billion hearts beating, as the 21-year-old pushed world champion Spain\u2019s Carolina Marin to the edge after building anticipation for Indians across the globe ahead of the biggest showpiece final of the quadrennial for women\u2019s badminton.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been 12 years since the flag on the podium \u2014 used to both flaunt talent and wipe tears \u2014 has been something other than that of China. And the Olympics summit clash couldn\u2019t have managed two better women in the ring.<\/p>\n

In the end, Marin left the pavilion dazed with her 19-21, 21-12, 21-15 victory over the Indian in 83 minutes.<\/p>\n

Sindhu stayed in the game without rolling over, as Marin\u2019s opponents have tended to, under her blistering attack of strokes and screams. Then, she stood on the podium, smiling politely, calm and poised. It was here that coach Gopichand, who joined the celebrations from the back of the crowd, standing on a chair, gestured the last of his instructions for the day \u2014 bite into the medal, as is tradition. This was a medal that meant as much to him as it did to the shuttler.<\/p>\n

The Hyderabad champion had taken Indian badminton, the country\u2019s high-performing sport for a while now, a notch higher. And, it was her manner of playing that got adrenaline soaring even as Marin, a considerably better player on this day, attempted and failed to walk all over her.<\/p>\n

The hard-hitting shuttler from India would pounce on the openings she saw, and push the final into a decider after winning the first set from 16-19 down. It was an error-prone match, but there were some stunning rallies, including a 52-shot stretch at 16-17 in the opener. The red-hot pace of the match was illustrated in the fact that 52 exchanges lasted over 49 seconds \u2014 more than a stroke per second.<\/p>\n

Diminutive Australian Kelly Hoare sat like a matron superior on the chair umpire\u2019s perch and had a tough time keeping the two combustible players in line. If it wasn\u2019t Marin\u2019s yelps and fist pumps, it was Sindhu\u2019s insistence on changing shuttles and grabbing breathers. At one point, Hoare would scold Marin for not having her kitbag strap hidden inside the ground tray, and the Spanish crowd didn\u2019t quite like the telling-off.<\/p>\n

The podium was a fascinating sight for watchers around the world with not a single Chinese atop \u2014 Li Xuerui had conceded the bronze playoff to Japan\u2019s Nozomi Okuhara. It was a colossal shake-up in the world order of a sport that has seen China dominate for so long that it had been unthinkable that a Japanese, an Indian and a Spaniard would make the Rio medals list.<\/p>\n

It was the best ever result for South America\u2019s first Olympics that a Spaniard won gold, and Marin entertained and enchanted in equal measure. She had that deceptive drop that stopped time in the middle of the whirl that she created by screaming and winning points hurriedly and rushing everyone around.<\/p>\n

Source: PTI\/ AFP\/ Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PV SINDHU became India\u2019s first woman to win an Olympics silver medal on Friday, creating…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1676,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[17,12,5,9,10,16,3,33,1,2],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/pvsindhu_pti-m2.jpg",759,422,false],"thumbnail":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/pvsindhu_pti-m2-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/pvsindhu_pti-m2-300x167.jpg",300,167,true],"medium_large":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/pvsindhu_pti-m2.jpg",640,356,false],"large":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/pvsindhu_pti-m2.jpg",640,356,false],"1536x1536":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/pvsindhu_pti-m2.jpg",759,422,false],"2048x2048":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/pvsindhu_pti-m2.jpg",759,422,false],"enternews-featured":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/pvsindhu_pti-m2.jpg",759,422,false],"enternews-medium":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/pvsindhu_pti-m2.jpg",720,400,false],"enternews-thumbnail":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/pvsindhu_pti-m2.jpg",480,267,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?author=1"},"category_info":"Stories<\/a>","tag_info":"Stories","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1675"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1677,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675\/revisions\/1677"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}