Athens: Two very depressing results welcomed Indians watching ‘progress’ of the contingent here on Tuesday. Mukesh Khatri, the only Greco-Roman wrestler here, a big-time showbiz back home, went down in 12 quick minutes to Russia’s Gueidar Mamedaliev and to Poland’s Dariusz Jalonski in the first round’s first two fights in the 55kg category. That was six minutes per bout.

India’s pahelwan failed to collect even one technical point or a classification point from either bout, the Russian and the Pole winning three plus three of them.

Khatri is now placed at 21st among 22 wrestlers in this category, not only missing the next qualification round, but returning sans even one technical point — a disgrace, to put it mildly. But the sailors, Malav Shroff and Sumeet Patel, on their 49er vessel, are really having fun. Let’s watch their ‘progress’.

In the 12th race, our stalwart seamen finished 19th, in a field of, yes, 19. On Tuesday they planned to set out again, fresh as pickled sardines, and then, well, did not start! But, then, that was a real bad day in office. So they were looking ahead at the 14th race. And lo behold! Nineteenth, again, out of 19 teams. Such consistency is rare in India.

In the 15th race, they were 17th. That’s because one team did not finish, and another was on the course side (non-attainable for that race).

In the day-end final standings, in 49er, Spain were clear leaders with 60 penalty points, Ukraine second (69), Britain (71). Indians remained at the comfortable bottom (235).

Nobody knows why Shroff and Patel kept on sailing. The contingent at the IOA and the Indian taxpayer would have saved some good money had they given up hope and gone back long back, also saving a lot many Athens-resident Indians red, embarrassed faces.

Now the bad news. They race again, their 16th and final adventure on Helenic seas, on Wednesday. One dare not think of aliterations here.

PTI adds from New Delhi: The Yachting Association of India (YAI) is apprehensive that the sport will “suffer” in the country following the pathetic performance of the sailing duo of Shroff and Patel at the Athens Olympics.

Already miffed at being overruled by the Indian Olympic Association’s choice of the 49er (double-handed dinghy open) class for an Olympics entry, YAI feels the result could have been better if the IOA had heeded its advice in the choice of event for accepting a wild card.

“We have more competent sailors in star, laser and 470 class. We had even told the IOA about our preference for these events.