Mixed pairs target Olympic tango
Tokyo will be the most gender-equal Games ever. India’s mixed pairs have had a great run so far
NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: As a pair, Saurabh Chaudhary and Manu Bhaker are not used to shooting from unfamiliar turf. But that is where India’s crack pistol combination was being pushed to by Iranian Javad Foroughi and Golnoush Sebghatollahi in the mixed team air pistol final at the ISSF World Cup here in March.
The two teenage pistol prodigies, paired up in 2019 for shooting’s newest format and went on a trip: shattering reputations while winning all four World Cup gold medals on hand that year.
When international competition resumed after almost a year spent in suspension due to the pandemic, Chaudhary and Bhaker had a fight on their hands for the first time since they paired up. At the World Cup, the Iranian duo had cruised to a 10-6 lead (two points for winning a set and first to 16 wins) in the mixed tea, final. A day before, Foroughi had stunned Chaudhary to win gold in the individual event.
The two 19-year-old Indians responded as only they could. Chaudhary, icy as always, shifted gears and began hitting high 10s. Bhaker soon caught up. The sparse gathering of teammates, coaches, and officials at the Karni Singh Range found its voice, knowing well the Indian pair has moved into a zone where they were unstoppable. With the scores levelled at 12-12, the Indian duo saved their best for the last two shots, on matchpoint. Chaudhary fired 10.7 and Bhaker 10.5 for a combined total of 21.2 to Iran’s 20.5 for their fifth World Cup gold on the trot.
That golden run of Chaudhary and Bhaker was halted in the recent World Cup in Osijek, Croatia 10 days ago, against topnotch Russian combination of Vitalina Batsarashkina—rio Olympics silver medallist—and Artem Chernousov, World Championship gold medallist. The Russians edged past 16-12 in the gold medal match.
The blip, however, will in no way rob the Indian pistol shooters of the tag of ‘hot favourites’ at Tokyo, in a brand-new event introduced to bring gender parity in shooting competitions at the Olympics.
Women and Olympics
Female athletes were excluded from the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 because Pierre de Coubertin, who founded the Games, thought women should not play sports at the highest level at all.
“No matter how toughened a sportswoman may be, her organism is not cut out to sustain certain shocks,” Coubertin had said then.
Things have been slow to change—in 1992, almost a hundred years after the first Olympics, there were exactly half the number of women’s events compared to men’s.
Tokyo will see more women athletes than ever before—they will make up nearly half the number of total athletes, courtesy more women’s events as well as nine new mixed team events.
Other Indian pairs have impressed in the mixed team format too. India will have two pairs each in (rifle/pistol) mixed events. In six world cups from 2019, India have won nine gold, three silver and two bronze medals in rifle and pistol mixed events, beating world and Olympic champions along the way.
In the New Delhi World Cup, the world No.1 rifle pair of Elavaneil Valarivan, 21 and No.2 Divyansh Singh Panwar, 19, also shot gold.
“In individual events the pressure is more. In a mixed team you can be a bit relaxed because you know that even if you don’t shoot well, you have a partner to rely on. That gives you confidence,” said Panwar.
Panwar, who paired with Moudgil in 2019 and won two World Cup golds, combined with Elavenil for the first time in senior World Cup, though they have shot successfully as a pair since their junior days, including a gold at the Junior World Cup in 2018.
“With Ela, it’s jokes, laughter, all the time, sometimes even before a final,” said Panwar.
Unlike them, Chaudhary and Bhaker keep to themselves. There are no words exchanged even after getting the job done.
More medals?
Like shooting, table tennis too will witness a mixed doubles competition for the first time at the Olympics. And while a singles medal by an Indian paddler would be a miraculous outcome, a top three finish in mixed doubles is realistic, where veteran Sharath Kamal will pair up with young Manika Batra in Tokyo.
Why? Because of the volume and the field. A total of 16 pairs will line up to compete in the mixed doubles in Tokyo, around half the number of participants for singles. All 16 pairs will battle in a direct knockout format with no byes. “Which means you’re actually three good matches away from being there,” Sharath
After more than 100 years, gender equality is still more of a goal than reality in the Olympics where historically there have been more men's than women's and mixed events. In a course correction bid, the Tokyo Olympics will have nine new mixed team events and there will be Indian participation in five of them said.
The field in Tokyo will have a touch of familiarity for the Indians. Six out of the 16 pairs including India are from Asia, a powerhouse in the sport. Three of those six pairs also competed together at the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games, where Sharath and Batra bagged a historic bronze medal.
In Tokyo, therefore, the Indians might well run into the higher-ranked Korean pair of Lee Sang-su and Jeon Ji-hee, whom they have the confidence of beating twice—in the Round of 16 of the Asian Games and the final of the Asian qualification tournament in Doha that sealed their Tokyo spot.
Of course, the Olympics will provide a stiffer challenge, the biggest coming from the Chinese and Japanese, for the Indian pair ranked 19th in the world.
But rankings can hold little significance in mixed doubles. At the Asian Games they were seeded ninth but beat third seed Koreans in the Round of 16.
Sharath and Batra, with an age gap of 13 years, make for a tricky opposition because of their different game styles— Sharath with his solid power game and Batra with her ability to slow the game down by engaging in rallies.
“As a singles player, it might be very, very difficult for me to dream of winning that Olympic medal. In mixed doubles, we stand a chance,” Sharath said.
Aiming together
India can add one more event to their mixed bag of hopefuls: Deepika Kumari and Atanu Das, who recently celebrated their first wedding anniversary with a World Cup gold in Paris last month.
The mixed event in archery is also making its Olympic debut in Tokyo and Kumari and Das are peaking at the right time. They beat the Dutch pair of Sjef Van Den Berg and Gaby Schloesser— who had won gold in the previous World Cup in Lausanne—5-3 in the final. Kumari and Das also blanked the formidable USA team, comprising three-time Olympic medallist Brady Ellison, 6-0 in the quarter-finals, showing just why they could be a force to reckon with in Tokyo.
The recurve mixed team competition will comprise 16 teams of one man and one woman each.
While it was their first World Cup gold together, the couple have tasted success in the past as well. At the 2019 Asian Archery Championships in Bangkok, they beat the Chinese to win a bronze.
“Deepika and Atanu are both in good form, so we should have a good chance in mixed. But it depends on the pool as well. The mixed event can be a bit more unpredictable, because all teams will field their strongest male and female archer,” said Purnima Mahato, the Dronacharya award-winning coach who was with the women’s recurve team in Paris.