Rio 2016: India’s brightest Medal prospects

India is sending its largest ever contingent for the Rio Olympics this year with several medal prospects in its ranks.

Sania Nehwal - Discipline: Badminton. After battling injuries at the start of the year, Sania has endured a mixed season so far. She defended her Australian Open Superseries title and settled for a bronze at the Asian Championships. Saina won bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics. She is the only Indian shuttler to win an Olympic Medal.

PV Sindhu – Discipline: Badminton. World No 10 PV Sindhu has had an inconsistent run in the women’s singles in Badminton. Her lone title this year came in the Malaysia Masters and Macau title last year. PV Sindhu is the first ever women’s singles player to win a medal at the World Championships where she won the bronze in 2013 and 2014.

Srikanth Kidambi – Discipline: Badminton. He is the first Indian to win a Super Series men’s title in 2014 China Open Super Series. He clinched the Syed Modi International this year and won two more gold medals at the 2016 South Asian Games. He had also won Swiss Open Grand Prix and clinched the Indian Open Super Series. He also has a Thailand Open Grand Prix title to his credit.

Deepika Kumari – Discipline: Archery. One of India’s biggest medal hopes, Deepika Kumari had to settle for silver in the mixed recurve pair event at the Archery World Cup. Deepika qualified for the Rio Olympics after scoring 686/720 in the women’s recurve event at the World Cup in 2015. She is a former World No 1 ranked Archer in women’s recurve and won her first World Cup Gold in 2012. She also won a Gold Medal in the 2013 Archery World Cup and has 3 Silver Medals so far.

Bombayla Devi – Discipline: Archery. Bombayla won a silver medal in the team event at the World Cup this year. She won the Gold in the 2010 CWG in the recurve team event and has 12 podium finishes in World Cups and World Championships.

Laxmirani Manjhi – Discipline: Archery. She clinched a silver medal in the individual recurve event and the team event at the 2015 Archery World Championships.

Irfan Kolothum Thodi – Discipline: 20km racewalk. Irfan is the current Indian record holder who burst onto the scene of race walking after securing a tenth place finish at the London Olympics. He covered the 20km race in 1:22:19.

Tintu Luka – Discipline: Women’s 800m. She secured gold in the Asian Athletics Championships in the 800m event and won silver in the 4*400m relay. Tintu impressive record includes a silver medal at the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon and gold in the women’s 4*400m relay in the same competition, which also saw India clinch its fourth consecutive gold since 2002.

Vikas Gowda – Discipline: Discus. He had finished eighth place in London Games finals. He is the current national record holder and has two Asian Athletics gold medals to his credit. He also won gold at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

Match Fixing: Horse Race to Tennis

Section 115BB of the Indian Income Tax Act spells out the “tax on winnings from lotteries, crossword puzzles, and races including horse races, card games and other games of any sort or gambling or betting of any form or nature whatsoever”. That is, if one bet and win, one must pay his taxes. The money we make from betting on Horses or anything is taxable.

The existence of this section suggests that such money is above board and legal. But here is the kicker horse racing is the only sport in which betting is legal, there are licensed bookmarkers who will take our bets on any given race. If one must declare winnings from betting of any form as income and pay tax on it, why is only such form of betting legal? To me, making horse racing the only sport that one can legally bet on is as entirely lacking of sense.

But all this has been on my mind because of the latest uproar over betting in sport. The recent news that matches fixing has happened in professional Tennis for years, and even in Grand Slam tournaments. Without naming anyone, it was reported that “28 top level players, including winners of Grand Slam Titles”, have been involved in Match Fixing, that the tennis establishment has known this and yet not acted against these players.

Until now, the only instance of match fixing alleged in pro tennis was in 2007, when World No 4 Nikolay Davydenko played a much lower ranked Argentine, Martin Vassallo in a match in Poland. Out of the blue, huge amount of money were placed on Martin victory, even as Nikolay opened up a comfortable lead in the match. Later, Nikolay claimed an injury to his foot and forfeited the match.

We also knew well that people bet on horse races and cricket and archery and every other sport on the planet and that there are inevitably, inexorably, attempts to influence the outcomes of those games. Whatever the explanation, the inescapable truth about sports is that people will bet on matches and attempt fixes.