Indian Shuttler Pusarla Venkata Sindhu today brought home India's maiden Olympic Silver in Badminton as Spain’s Carolina Marin became first European woman to bag a Gold Medal in the Olympic Games.
In the nail biting final of woman's badminton singles at the Rio Olympics 2016, world no. 1 Carolina Marin won 2-1 against PV Sindhu.
After the first two games were won by both the players each, the third game went into Marin’s favour by 21-15.
Although Sindhu fought hard to forge her way back into the march, the massive lead acquired by Marin in the last game of the decider match proved costlier for her.
The second game of the crucial match saw world’s no. 1 dominating over Sindhu from the very start. Fighting back after losing the first game, Marin at no point let the second game slip out of her hands and won it 21-12.
The final match unfolded as a high voltage action from the beginning itself as Marin was leading the first game by a huge margin of 12-6 until Sindhu made a strong comeback turning the match in India’s favour by 21-19.
Initially, Sindhu was struggling a bit to score against the Spanish Shuttler and at a point it seemed that the game would go out of India’s hand.
However, towards the end of the first game, Sindhu swung into action, turned the tables and emerged victorious.
Earlier, there was a delay of 20-25 minutes in the start of the match.
Post her historic stint at the Rio Olympics, Badminton Association of India announced Rs 50 lakh prize for PV Sindhu and Rs 10 lakh for her coach.
Beaming with pride, Sindhu parents were ecstatic with their daughter's performance at the Olympics this year.
"We are very happy as Sindhu is one of the youngest women players to have bagged a silver medal at the Olympics," said her mother.
After her semifinal win over Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara, whom she had lost to as recently as February this year, the 21-year-old Hyderabad native promised she was aiming to go all the way.
