Who can win medals for India at Olympics 2021 today (Day 8, 31st July)? Events, predictions and favourites

The Olympics 2021 heads into Day 8 and Indian athletes will be looking forward to ending their seven-day streak of returning home without a medal. The men's individual archery competition and the women's 50m Rifle 3 position are the two medal events that will see Indian participation.

Atanu Das will leave no stone unturned in ensuring India wins its first-ever archery medal at the Olympics. Tejaswini Sawant and Anjum Moudgil, on the other hand, will try their best to cap off India's disappointing shooting campaign with a medal.

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India at Olympics 2021 (Day 8, 30th July): Events and timings (All times in IST)

Equestrian

Eventing Dressage Day 2 - Session 3 - Fouaad Mirza, 5:00 AM

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Athletics

Women's Discus Throw Qualification - Group A, Seema Punia, 6:00 AM

Women's Discus Throw Qualification - Group B, Kamalpreet Kaur, 7:25 AM

Men's Long Jump Qualification - M Sreeshankar, 3:40 PM

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Archery

Atanu Das will be in action on Day 8 of Olympics 2021

Men's Individual 1/8 Eliminations - Atanu Das vs Takaharu Furukawa, 7:18 AM

Men's Individual Quarter-finals (Subject to Qualification) - 12 noon

Men's Individual Semi-finals (Subject to Qualification) - 12:30 PM

Men's Individual Bronze Medal match (Subject to Qualification) - 1:00 PM

Men's Individual Gold Medal match (Subject to Qualification) - 1:15 PM

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Boxing

Men's Lightweight Preliminaries Round of 16 - Amit Panghal vs. YH Rivas Martinez, 7:30 AM

Women's Middleweight Quarterfinal 4 - Pooja Rani vs Li Qian, 3:36 PM

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Shooting

50m Rifle three Positions Women's Qualification - Tejaswini Sawant, Anjum Moudgil, 8:30 AM

50m Rifle three Positions Women's Finals (Subject to Qualification), 12:30 PM

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Sailing

49er Men's Race 10, 11, and 12 - Ganapathy Kelapanda and Varun Thakkar, 8:35 AM onwards

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Hockey

Indian Women's Hockey Team vs South Africa Women's Hockey Team, 8:45 AM

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Badminton

Women's Singles Semi-final - PV Sindhu vs Tai Tzu-Ying, 3:20 PM

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India at Olympics 2021 today (Day 8, 31st July) predictions: Who could win medals?

If Atanu Das continues on his prime form, he can surely beat Japan's Takaharu Furukawa in the Round of 16. However, the matches that follow that won't be easy for him as he will need to shoot 10's consistently to progress further. At the best, we can expect a bronze medal from him.

Fouaad Mirza is in seventh position after two rounds of dressage and will be hoping to climb up the standings.

Kamalpreet Kaur looks set to qualify for the finals of the women's discus throw. However, the same can't be said about Seema Punia in the women's discus throw and M Sreeshankar in the men's long jump.

Amit Panghal is expected to cruise past his opponent in Round of 16, however, Pooja Rani will find it tough to go past China's Li Qian in the quarter-finals. Given the disappointing campaign of the Indian shooters, it will be a big achievement if Tejaswini Sawant and Anjum Moudgil can qualify for the finals.

Only two teams are behind the pair of Ganapathy Kelapanda and Varun Thakkar. It looks nearly impossible for India to qualify for the finals of 49er Men's Race.

The Indian women's hockey team has to win their match against South Africa to progress to the quarter-finals. They also have to ensure that some other results go in their favor. But the Women in Blue seem primed to win in their contest as South Africa have lost all their previous matches.

Coming to PV Sindhu, she has not yet lost a single set in the women's singles badminton competition of Olympics 2021. Although her opponent is ranked World No.1, Sindhu is known to step up on big occasions. We expect her to win the match and qualify for the final.