India men’s hockey team after losing their semi-final defeat to Germany at Paris Olympics 2024.© AFP

She grappled on the streets with an “unjust system” without a care in the world and on Tuesday Vinesh Phogat brought a lot of that panache to the mat as well, taking down one big name after another to become India’s first woman wrestler to enter the finals of the Olympic Games. The 29-year-old from Haryana defeated Yusneylis Guzman Lopez of Cuba 5-0 in the semifinals where she used brain and brawn in equal measure to be assured of a at least a silver in her third Olympic outing.

This was after she was stretchered off on her debut in Rio 2016 and had a forgettable outing in Tokyo four years later.

“Tomorrow is an important day, will talk then,” she told the waiting media before vanishing from the sight to prepare for her summit battle against American Sarah Ann Hildebrandt.

Watch: Vinesh Phogat holds back tears after winning semi-final

Glory is for those who endear and dare!

Vinesh Phogat is on her way to the wrestling finals of #Paris2024!

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On the day, she beat world No. 1 and reigning Olympic champion Yui Sasaki during the dying moments of their pre-quarterfinal bout, handing the legendary Japanese her first defeat in 83 bouts.

If the first six minutes were a shocker for the wrestling world, the next six minutes against 2018 European champion Oksana Livach of Ukraine were an assurance of her class were she made a mockery of her opponent just when she needed to.

The last six minutes on the day against Lopez were another master-class in tactical acumen where she was a tigress on the prowl waiting for that one mistake where she could get the single-leg hold of her opponent.

It was a very lonely battle as it wasn’t just about winning against the opponent on the mat but also about fighting a way more bitter battle off it.

Her character and credibility came in for questioning, and then there was a knee surgery less than a year before Olympics which had the Doubting Thomases wanting her to fail.

But for 18 minutes on Tuesday, Vinesh didn’t have the option of failing. After all, she came here as a representative of all those women who have been severely wronged by the wrestling establishment.

When she won against Susaki, she let out a cry of relief, laying flat on back but when she entered the final, the most poignant picture was that of her teary-eyed Belgian coach Woller Akos, who has also been her confidant in this battle.

The last 18 months have been nothing short of a roller-coaster for the feisty lady, who became the face of a protest against former Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who is facing allegations of sexual harassment.

Pulled by the hair at India gate during the protest, she became the proverbial enfant terrible for the establishment. Her performance on Tuesday is a slap for the parent body that didn’t stand by her.

The semi-final bout saw Vinesh maintaining her balance, not allowing the Cuban to get her leg. Her feet were positioned perfectly to avert any crisis.

A point earned for passivity in the first round helped her immensely but she herself got a warning for not trying enough in the second round.

However, Vinesh perhaps loves being cornered and just like the Susaki bout, she fought back with vengeance for Lopez’s right leg and pinned her down for two points and choked her with leg hold to clinch the match.

With this, Vinesh has found her silver lining but she is in search of a golden hue.

Joshua Cheptegui after winning gold in 5000m at Paris Olympics 2024.© AFP

The Paris Olympics organising committee said Tuesday it would meet its target to reduce single-use plastics by half compared to the 2012 London Games despite bottles by major sponsor Coca-Cola being widely used on its sites. Fanta, Sprite and Coke are flowing unabated at Olympic venues, where staff have been seen emptying plastic bottles into reusable cups — a practice some say runs counter to the Games’ pledge to be the greenest in history.

The Coca-Cola Company in May said nearly 10 out of 18 million refreshments — “more than half” of all those served to spectators — would be “without single-use plastic”.

But the Atlanta-based giant said it has had to use plastics due to “technical and logistical constraints”, despite Paris banning spectators from bringing single-use containers to Olympics sites.

At the site for the swimming events for example, glass bottles were being emptied into red-and-white cups, as noted by one AFP journalist.

While 700 drink fountains have been deployed across the competition, plastic bottles are being used where glass alternatives aren’t an option, said Georgina Grenon, the head of sustainability for the Paris Games.

In a press release on Friday Coca-Cola said it needed to adapt to each location and find the “best conditions for safety and food quality”, given technical and logistical constraints including water and electricity supplies, and storage space.

But this year’s Paris Games should still slash plastics use compared to the 2012 London Games, according to the organising committee.

“In our estimations of what will be served… we believe we will attain this 50 percent plastic single-use plastic reduction,” said Grenon.

The bottles poured into cups would not count towards this target, she added.

Environmental protection charity France Nature Environment (FNE) slammed the firm for “unjustified plastic pollution”, adding on Friday that the US company deserved the “gold medal for greenwashing” during the Olympics.

In 2022, the most recent data available, Coca-Cola, which is one of the world’s top plastics producers, manufactured 134 billion plastic bottles.

The beverage giant has set a target for all its bottles to be made from fully recycled plastic by 2030.

Of those currently filling rubbish bins at the Paris Games, Coca-Cola said around 6.2 million would be from this form, known as PET plastic.

Taiwanese sports officials threatened the International Boxing Association with legal action on Tuesday after the organisation claimed a Taiwanese fighter in the Paris Olympics women’s competition was “a man”. Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting and Algeria’s Imane Khelif, both of whom are guaranteed a medal after reaching the semi-finals, are at the centre of a major gender row. The IBA disqualified them from its world championships in 2023, but boxing in Paris is run by the International Olympic Committee, which cleared them to compete.

The two organisations have been in open dispute and the IOC took over the sport at the Games because of financial, governance and ethical concerns at the IBA.

The Russian-led IBA attempted to clarify the situation surrounding Lin and Khelif but a chaotic press conference on Monday only muddied the waters further, with IBA officials making a series of contradictory statements.

Its president, Kremlin-linked oligarch Umar Kremlev, claimed that both fighters had “genetic testing that shows that these are men”.

Talking via video call, Kremlev also claimed that testing showed the duo “have men’s level of testosterone”.

In response, Taiwan’s Sports Administration said it had filed “a solemn protest against the IBA”.

It accused the IBA, which has effectively been expelled from the Olympic movement, of “continuing to publish false information to mislead the public and attempt to interfere with the Games”.

“The Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee (Taiwan) has retained a lawyer to send a letter of warning to the IBA, and reserves the right to pursue legal action and file a lawsuit if necessary,” the sports administration added.

IOC president Thomas Bach and high-level officials from Algeria and Taiwan have strenuously defended Khelif and Lin, saying they were born and raised as women, and have passports saying that.

Khelif and Lin also fought at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, but did not win a medal and competed without controversy.

The Algerian fights later Tuesday in the semi-finals of the 66kg category and Lin’s last-four bout is on Wednesday in the 57kg division.

Hockey legend Ajit Pal Singh on Friday lauded the Indian men team for their brave performance against Tokyo Games silver medallist and nemesis Australia, whom it defeated after 52 years in the Olympics here. India stunned Australia 3-2 to register their first win over Australia in the Olympic Games since 1972 Munich Games. In 1972 Munich Games, hockey was played for the first time in astro-turf.  “Australia has always dominated us. After the 1972 Olympics we have always been battered by Australia.

“But the way our team played today, it was heartening to see. Out of the four quarters, India dominated three, only in the second Quarter India were on the back-foot a bit,” Ajit Pal told PTI video.

“The way India played today, they taught the Australians how to play hockey.

“We can beat any team now and I would like to congratulate all the hockey lovers in India and can only say ‘Well done Boys!’,” he added.

The 1975 World Cup-winning captain also lauded skipper Harmanpreet Singh and described him as the heart and soul of the side.

“Harmanpreet is the life and soul of the team. In the previous games, he equalised with his goal and one of his goals was the match winner. Today also he was outstanding. Also, Jarmanpreet Singh, I am very happy to see that boy, he was really fighting.

“Abhishek, Sukhjeet (Singh), Hardik (Singh) were too good but the forward line players need to step up. Those players have the potential and I expect them to come good in the games ahead,” Ajit Pal said.

“Sreejesh as usual made the team feel at ease. When he is there, the team doesn’t need to worry,” he added.

Ajit Pal also praised India for their performance against Belgium.

“India played well against Belgium as well, they have defeated them earlier but Australia was the one side that they needed to defeat. They should take confidence from the win and now they can take on anyone in the remaining matches.

“Any other team will take them lightly now. Today India established that we are here to fight and win the medal,” he concluded.

Following his team’s narrow defeat to the USA in the bronze medal match for the recurve archery mixed team at the ongoing Paris Olympics, Indian archer Dhiraj Bommadevara said it was heartbreaking to miss out on a medal, but the team will take the performance positively and continue improving. India’s hunt for their first Olympic medal in archery continued after Ankita Bhakat and Dhiraj Bommadevara suffered a heartbreaking loss in the bronze medal match in the recurve mixed team event on Friday. Despite making history by becoming the first Indian pair to reach the semi-finals at the Olympics in a mixed archery event, Ankita and Dhiraj’s arrows missed the mark at the decisive moment, ending their campaign in the Paris Olympics.

Speaking to ANI after the match, Dhiraj said, “It feels good that we have performed better than in past Olympics. But also, we are sad to miss out on a medal this time. We have improved a lot. SAI (Sports Authority of India), TOPS (Target Olympic Podium Scheme), and the federation have supported us a lot. We will keep working hard. Whatever we have learned here, we will try to put those learnings into practice and improve our performances.”

Dhiraj noted that the archers were extremely unlucky at times in their individual and team events.

“We were not able to win despite being nearly perfect. We will go back, become perfectionists, and bounce back. When a player is just one step short of a medal, it feels bad because a player sacrifices a lot in his life for that, he works really hard. But we stay positive. We will take it as a challenge and keep fighting,” concluded the archer.

The Indian duo came close to the bronze but fell short. They did not get off to an ideal start after Ankita struck a seven in her opening shot. The American duo capitalized on the opportunity and wrapped up the first set by one point. The US archers led the bronze medal tie by 2-0 (38-37).

In the second set, Ankita once again struck a seven, but Dhiraj made amends by sending his arrow to the 10-point region. The medal match became open after Casey hit the red zone to pick up eight. The Indian duo followed it up by hitting the nine-point mark each. However, a ten from Brandy sealed the second set in favor of the US (37-35).

In a must-win set, Ankita set the tone with a ten, and Dhiraj followed it up with a nine. Brandy replied strongly with a ten, but the pressure got the better of Casey after she sent her arrow into the red zone for a seven. India took advantage of the opening and closed the gap to 2-4 (38-34).

In the fourth set, which decided India’s fate, Ankita began the proceedings with an eight, and Dhiraj followed it up with a nine. The American archers made the most of the opportunity and walked away with the bronze medal with a 6-2 win.

Before playing for India’s fourth medal, Dhiraj and Ankita fell short in the semi-finals against South Korea’s Kim Woojin and Lim Sihyeon.

Arjun Babuta in action at the Paris Olympics 2024.© AFP

Irish ex-world champion Amy Broadhurst, who beat the Algerian boxer at the heart of an Olympics gender row, has defended her on social media and urged people to “stop the bullying.” Broadhurst defeated Imane Khelif at the boxing World Championships in 2022, a year before the Algerian was disqualified by the International Boxing Federation after failing gender “eligibility criteria”. “Personally I don’t think she (Khelif) has done anything to ‘cheat’,” Broadhurst wrote on X. “I think it’s the way she was born and that’s out of her control.”

She pointed out that Khelif had been beaten nine times in the past by other women which “says it all”.

Khelif, 25, has become embroiled in a heated global gender row after causing her Italian opponent on Thursday to retire hurt during a last-16 bout at the Paris Olympics after just 46 seconds.

“There’s an awful lot of abuse going online. We are in very close contract with the athletes and their entourages,” Mark Adams, spokesman for the International Olympic Committee, told reporters on Friday.

He said Khelif was being “stigmatised and potentially forced out of a competition.”

Harry Potter author and feminist J.K Rowling branded the Algerian a “bullying cheat” in a social media post, while Donald Trump’s Republican running mate JD Vance described the bout as a “grown man pummelling a woman.”

British boxer Nicola Adams, who won gold in the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, also criticised the IOC’s decision to allow Khelif to compete as a woman.

“After years of fighting for women’s boxing to even exist in the Olympics and then all the training they go through to get there, it was hard to watch another fighter be forced to give up on her Olympic dreams,” she wrote on X.

“People not born as biological women, that have been through male puberty, should not be able to compete in women’s sport. Not only is this unfair it’s dangerous!”

Broadhurst urged observers to remember that “nothing has been confirmed that this person is male.”

The International Boxing Association has not specified what tests were done on Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu Ting who was also disqualified in 2023 after failing to meet gender eligibility criteria at the world championships in New Delhi.

The IOC, which is in open conflict with the Russian-led International Boxing Association after expelling it from the Olympic movement, has dismissed the tests as “arbitrary” and “cobbled together.”

It is allowing women to compete at the Paris Olympics boxing providing they are identified as women in their identity documents.