India's schedule for Tokyo Olympics on Saturday, July 24: Massive day for Indian athletes

With the Men's Hockey captain Manpreet Singh and veteran boxer MC Mary Kom leading India's contingent at the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony, a total of 119 athletes will start their campaign from July 24. Tokyo Olympics 2020 has officially been declared 'open' after Japan's Naomi Osaka lit up the final cauldron on Friday. India at Tokyo Olympics will begin their quest for medals with shooting and other sports like Archery, Hockey, etc will follow it. On Day 2 of the Tokyo Olympics, the qualification matches will kickstart at 6 am and it will be followed by the medal matches at 10:45 am. So here is the list of Indian athletes in action at the Tokyo Olympics on day 2:

India's schedule for Tokyo Olympics on July 24

Shooting 

5 AM: Women's 10m Air Rifle Qualification (Elavenil Valarivan, Apruvi Chandela)

Archery 

6 AM: Mixed Team 1/8 Eliminations (Pravin Jadhav/Deepika Kumari vs Chih-Chun Tang/Chia-En Lin of Chinese Taipei)

Hockey

6:30 AM: Men's Pool A - India vs New Zealand

Shooting

7:15 AM: Women's 10m Air Rifle Final (Elavenil Valarivan, Apurvi Chandela - if qualify)

Judo

7:30 AM: Women's -48kg Elimination Round of 32 (Sushila Devi vs Eva Csernoviczki of Hungary)

Rowing

7:30 AM: Lightweight Men's Double Sculls Heat 2 (Arvind Singh, Arjun Lal Jat)

Table Tennis

8:30 AM: Mixed Doubles Round of 16 (Achanta Kamal/Manika Batra vs Yun Ju Lin/Cheng I Ching of Chinese Taipei)

Tennis

8: 30 AM Approx: Men's first-round - (Sumit Nagal vs Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan)

Badminton

8:50 AM: Men's Doubles Group Stage - Group A (Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty vs Lee Yang/Wang Chi-Lin of Chinese Taipei)

9:30 AM: Men's Singles Group Stage - Group D (Sai Praneeth vs Zilberman Misha of Israel)

Shooting

9:30 AM: 10m Air Pistol Men's Qualification (Saurabh Chaudhary, Abhishek Verma)

Weightlifting

10:20 AM: Women's 49kg Medal Round (Mirabai Chanu)

Shooting

12:00 PM: Men's 10m Air Pistol Final (Saurabh Chaudhary, Abhishek Verma - if qualify)

Table Tennis

12:15 PM: Women's Singles Round 1 - (Manika Batra vs Tin-Tin Ho of Great Britain)

1:00 PM: Women's Singles Round 1 - (Sutirtha Mukherjee vs Linda Bergstrom of Sweden)

Boxing

3:54 PM: Men's Welter (63-69kg) - Round of 32 (Vikas Krishan vs Sewonrets Quincy Mensah Okazawa of Japan) 

Hockey

5:15 PM: Women's Pool A - India vs the Netherlands 

India at Tokyo Olympics Day 2

Tokyo Olympics 2020 Day 2 is one of the biggest for the Indian contingent. The day possibly holds the prospect of winning six medals at the Tokyo Olympics, 

Mirabai Chanu who is the sole Indian representative in weightlifting will kickstart her campaign on Saturday. Competing in the 49kg category, her real challenge lies in China's Zhihui Hou, but looking at the recent form of the Manipur-based lifter, it is safe to say that Chanu can indeed come back with a medal.

The mixed pair competition of archery will also get underway on Saturday after the ranking matches on Friday, Pravin Jadhav and Deepika Kumari would be paired alongside each other. Deepika might have practised with her better-half and archer Atanu Das heading into the tournament, but who knows the pair of Deepika and Pravin might just emerge as the darkhorse.

In shooting, men's 10m air pistol and women's 10m air pistol events will be held. Apurvi Chandela and Elavenil Valarivan are the two Indian shooters who have emerged as the frontrunners in the women's 10m air pistol events after having a good showing in the events this year.

Saurabh Chaudhary is someone who everyone has put their money on to bring back gold in the men's 10m air pistol event. South Korea's Jin Jong-Oh is expected to be a thorn in Chaudhary's way, but looking at the recent form, it is safe to expect the Indian youngster to emerge as the winner of gold.

On Saturday, shuttler Sai Praneeth will start his men's singles campaign while the doubles pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy will also open their campaign. The matches will showcase the form these three shuttlers have been in, and one will be able to gauge how far the badminton contingent can go in the Games.

Both men's and women's hockey teams will start their bid to win gold at the Games on Saturday. While the women's team clashes against the formidable Netherlands, the men's team will lock horns against darkhorse New Zealand.

Deepika Kumari to partner with Pravin Jadhav

Based on the combined scores of Pravin Jadhav and Deepika Kumari, who finished ninth earlier at the Women's individual ranking event. India secured a similar ninth place ranking for the mixed pair competition.

India had the option to send entries of Atanu Das and Deepika, who recently won a gold medal together at the Paris World Cup, but the federation went ahead with Jadhav.

"Simply put, we picked Jadhav based on his current form, it's no rocket science," Archery Association of India official Virendra Sachdeva, who is accompanying the team in Tokyo, told PTI. Atanu Das and Deepika Kumari, who tied the knot last year, are the first Indian couple to take part in the same discipline in an Olympic Games.

(Image Credits: Republic World)

(Story Inputs: ANI)