The frustration for aspirant Olympians has been palpable and athletes like table tennis player Sathiyan Gnanasekaran have been forced to innovate to stay sharp during the lengthy lockdowns.
Given a chance national women's table tennis champion Manika Batra is keen to get tips from her idol, ace shuttler Saina Nehwal, ahead of her debut in next month's Rio Olympic Games.
Indian paddlers Achanta Sharath Kamal and K Shamini have failed to qualify for the knockout stages of the 26th Table Tennis Asian Cup, being played at the Queen Elizabeth Stadium in Hong Kong.
Indian paddlers continued to impress as both men's and women's teams assured themselves of at least two bronze medals by progressing to the semi-finals of the 19th Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships in New Delhi.
It was largely made possible by Manika Batra, who ended up winning four medals, the most by an Indian in Gold Coast.
Ace Indian paddler Sharath Kamal on Saturday advanced to the second round of the ITTF Kuwait Open Super Series table tennis tournament after a 4-2 victory over Hampus Soderlund of Sweden in Kuwait City.
With the jailed Ajay Singh Chautala on his way out after completing three terms, former Indian Administrative Service officer PC Chaturvedi is tipped to become the new president of the Table Tennis Federation of India when the body holds its Annual General Meeting on March 17.
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India's leading player Sharath Kamal overcame a sluggish start to beat Portugal's Tiago Apolonia in the men's singles second round, while the women challenge ended with Manika Batra and Sutirtha Mukherjee losing to their superior opponents at the Tokyo Olympics on Monday.
The Achanta Sharath Kamal-Poulomi Ghatak and Soumyadeep Roy-Mouma Das pairs went down after a fine showing in the table tennis event at the Asian Games.
India thus finished a fantastic badminton campaign with three gold, one silver and two bronze.
The dreaded Zika virus may be of serious concern to some taking part in next month's Rio Olympics, but Indian shot put hopeful Inderjeet Singh just brushed it aside and said that it was unlikely to trouble the country's 100-plus contingent at the Games.
Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal's impressive form helped Indian men register their second successive victory, while their women counterparts continued their dismal performance in the World Team Table Tennis Championships in Moscow on Monday.
A summary of Indian athletes' performance on Day 7 of the Games.
The contingent comprises 277 men and 247 women athletes. In the 2014 Incheon Asian Games, the Indian contingent featured 541 athletes across 28 disciplines.
Modi on Saturday hosted the Indian contingent at his residence to felicitate the players in New Delhi.
Star Indian paddler Achanta Sharath Kamal and national champion Anthony Amalraj failed to book a berth for the upcoming London Games after crashing out of the World Olympic Qualification Table Tennis Tournament in Doha, Qatar.
With a three-stage plan in place, Indian paddlers would be fully prepared for the Commonwealth Games in Delhi next year, feels national coach Bhawani Mukherjee.
The committee also picked 19 sportspersons for the Arjuna Award, including the likes of cricketers Ravindra Jadeja and Poonam Yadav, track and field stars Tejinder Pal Singh Toor, Mohammed Anas and Swapna Barman.
Rediff.com introduces you to the athletes who have brought India glory in Birmingham.
Manika Batra, who has become toast of the nation after her sensational run at the Gold Coast Games, is hoping that she has done enough to spark a table tennis revolution in India like Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu did for badminton.
Ace Indian paddlers Sharath Kamal and Subhajit Saha will feature in the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Pro Tour Grand Finals that gets underway in Seoul from December 16-19.
'There cannot be anyone like Air Marshal Keelor -- he was so difficult to emulate.' Air Commodore Nitin Sathe (retd) salutes War Hero Air Marshal Denzil Keelor PVSM, KC, AVSM, VrC who passed into the ages last month.
Both the teams registered identical 3-0 victories in their respective matches.
Heptathlete Swapna Barman added a dash of heroism to her historic gold medal
India's young assured themselves a medal by entering the semi-finals of the Junior Asian Table Tennis Championships in Bangkok for the first time in the history of the game. The entry to the last-four stage has not only assured the four-member Indian team a bronze medal but also a straight entry into the World Junior Championships, to be held in Slovakia in December.
India's national table tennis coach Massimo Constantini expects his wards to do well in next month's Asian Championship in Lucknow to boost their confidence ahead of next year's Commonwealth Games.
Achantha Sharath Kamal surrendered 1-4 to Austria's Chen Weixing in the second round of the men's singles at the Beijing Olympics.
Hoping for an improved performance in next month's table tennis World Championships in Rotterdam, Indian paddlers will undergo a 21-day training camp in China from April 16 to May 6.
India's Ankita Das fought valiantly and stretched World No 10 China's Ruochen Gu to six games before losing in the quarter-finals of the Volkswagen World Junior Table Tennis Championships, in Bahrain on Sunday.
Following is India's schedule at the Asian Games in Hangzhou on Saturday, September 30.
Following is the schedule of Indian contingent on day six of the Asian Games:
Here's a look at Indian athletes' performance on Monday, Day 4 of the Games.
Indian badminton team's chief coach Pullela Gopichand, multiple world title holder cueist Pankaj Advani, former hockey captain Dhanraj Pillay were some of the prominent names who made financial contribution in country's fight against coronavirus pandemic.
Chinese paddlers reasserted continental supremacy on Friday by defending both the men's and women's team titles on the fourth day of the 19th Asian Table Tennis Championships while Indian men finished a distant seventh in the Champions Division.
Sharath along with G Sathiyan has been handed a tough draw in the men's singles competition.
India's top-five finish not a given this time
Seventeen-year-old Harmeet Desai, of Gujarat clinched the Joola Austria Junior and Cadet Open title at Linz, Austria beating compatriot Soumyajit Ghosh in a hard-fought five-game match.
Prajnesh is now ranked 102 in the men's singles rankings with a jump of seven places while Ankita leapfrogged 35 places to a career-high 168 in the women's singles.
