Category: SPORTS

If Lionel Messi does become the latest star to help Paris Saint-Germain’s quest to win the elusive Champions League, coach Mauricio Pochettino must work out the best way to accommodate him in a top-heavy attack. Messi bid a tearful farewell to Barcelona on Sunday. At the same time, PSG was in talks with his team trying to finalize a deal to sign him amid reports Messi had flown to Paris on Sunday for a meeting. Talk of Messi’s imminent arrival led several hundred PSG fans to wait outside Le Bourget…

A history-scripting Olympic gold medal in his pocket, star javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra’s next target is breaching the 90m mark soon in the coming events. In fact, Chopra, who clinched the country’s maiden athletics medal to become only the second Indian to win an individual gold in the Olympics, went for it while trying for the Games record (90.57m) on Saturday but could not accomplish it. “Javelin throw is a very technical event and a lot depends on the day’s form. Anything can happen. So, my next target is to…

More than half a century after Milkha Singh looked back for a fraction of a second and 37 years after PT Usha forgot to dip at the finish line resulting in heart-breaking fourth-place finishes, the glorious flight of Neeraj Chopra’s javelin gave the country its first-ever track and field medal, a gold. Chopra’s speed on the runway, the wide block, long pull of the throwing arm, wonderful alignment of the spear with his motor movements and balance came together on the day it mattered most as he was the supreme…

The history-making Indian women’s hockey team’s dream of securing its maiden Olympic medal remained unfulfilled as it lost 3-4 to Great Britain in a hard-fought bronze play-off but the stout-hearted side managed to record its best ever finish at the Games here on Friday. The team had already created history and surpassed all expectations by entering the semifinals of the Games for the first time. But the maiden Olympic medal remained out of bounds as world no.4 Great Britain, who were gold-winners in the 2016 Rio Games, came out on…

Tokyo Olympics: The Indian men’s hockey team clinched a historic bronze medal even as wrestler Ravi Dahiya returned silver in men’s freestyle 57kg but Vinesh Phogat bowed out at the Games on Thursday. India’s newest wrestling star Ravi Dahiya picked up an impressive silver on his Olympic debut but the country was left emotionally stirred by its lionhearted men’s hockey team players who secured a bronze that washed away four decades of pain and disappointment that the sport and its followers have endured. Thirteen years after failing to even qualify for the Games, an…

 The Indian men’s hockey team’s dream of an Olympic gold after 41 years remained unfulfilled as it lost 2-5 to world champions Belgium in the last-four stage but the side is still in the hunt for a bronze in the Tokyo Games here on Tuesday. Alexander Hendrickx (19th, 49th, 53rd minutes), the tournament’s highest goal getter, scored a hat-trick while Loick Luypaert (2nd minute) and John-John Dohmen (60th) also struck to hand the reigning silver-medallists their second successive entry into the final of the Olympics. India’s goals came from the…

The 2-5 loss to Belgium in the Olympic semifinals on Tuesday is disappointing but Indian men’s hockey team captain Manpreet Singh and star custodian P R Sreejesh said the side has no time to dwell on the heartbreak as it has to refocus for the bronze medal play-off on Thursday. The eight-time winners of Olympic gold, the last of which came way back in 1980, fell short against world champions Belgium, losing 2-5 in the semifinals here on Tuesday. “It is really hard for me right now because we came…