India in Olympics

Lets be honest here. How many Indians are showing decent interest in what the Indian athletes are doing in the olympics? We see the medals tally in the news and simply pass some sarcastic comment to go with the flow. Most of us feel that showing any interest in Indians in olympics is "not cool"; its not as same as following IPL or F1 or EPL.

Yes. I do follow cricket a lot and I am a die hard cricket fan. But that has not forced me to show the least interest in the Olympics. Every time the Indian contingent goes to the Olympics, I do wish and want them to perform well and come back with medals and laurels. Afterall, it is the only event that truly unites the entire world. Even the FIFA world cup that has lot of fan following, would not evoke the same response from countries that are not ranked high enough, like India.

This is what we have done so far in the history of Olympics:

Gold in 1948, 1952, 1956, 1964, 1980, Silver in 1960, and Bronze in 1968, 1972 for Hockey: (5-1-2)

Silver for Chintamani Kaur in 1948 for Scuplture Event in Art Contests

Bronze for Kha-Shaba Jadav in 1952 for Freestyle Bantamweight Wrestling

Bronze for Leander Paes in 1996 for Men's Singles Tennis

Bronze for Karnam Malleswari in 2000 for 69kg Women's Weightlifting

Silver for Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore in 2004 Double Trap Men Shooting

I remember watching live PT Usha missing out on the 400m bronze by one hundredth of a second in the LA olympics in 1984. Then that Paes bronze in the 1996 olympics in Atlanta and that epic semifinal against the eventual winner Agassi. After that in Athens I happened to watch live in TV, Rathore claiming that Silver.

For some reason even I was hoping for better performance and more medals and this is not just because of the media madness. Whenever an Indian is competing finals, I was watching them with so much of tension and anticipation. Whether it was our shooters or archers or wrestlers or the boxers. I saw live, the first Indian gold medal winning performance of Abinav and it was a great moment to see our national anthem being played in the olympics. It was the first time I am seeing that as we couldnt get to see India's last hockey gold presentation in LA.

Beyond this and the boxers, what was really disappointing was not that many of our guys and girls have not own medals, but the fact that they have performed below their individual best. You may not win medals in every event, but one should atleast strive to get their personal best, then go on to better the national mark, then a final spot and then aim to win the medal. Theres no harm if they aim straight to win the medal; but it is totally unacceptable when some one performs below their personal best. This is true with most of the athletes failing to qualify for the finals. There is no excuse for Anju George's three fouls in the long jump qualifiers. It would be a different story whether she would have cleared the qualification mark; but when you foul all attempts you never know.

So while we congratulated and danced with our first individual gold of Abhinav Bindra, lets not forget about olympics till the London version and come back with the same excuses. At this time one of the wrestlers Sushil Kumar has won the bronze and the boxer Vijender Kumar has assured himself of a medal. So this is our best result so far in olympics and even though this is not anywhere close to a decent performance, we can still hope that this would get better from here.

These are my thoughts/suggestions as to what we can do to become a better nation in olympic sports (for once lets not blame our government and the politicians and see what really can be done):

1) We the citizens of the country should take more interest in all other sports and whenever any India does well at the international competitions, we should make it a big news and offer our support to the sportsmen.

2) Media should do that same and support such sportsmen, by turning the spotlight on them, whenever they shine in the world arena. I didnt know that Abinav has own the world championship and I am ashamed of that.

3) Corporate companies should help these sportsmen by sponsoring them and we as the countrymen should support those companies that help such sponsors. If Samsung supports boxing in India and LG supports cricket, we must think about buying Samsung products more.

4) BCCI can share some of its fortunes and help the other sports bodies build infrastructure for their sports. BCCI can allot some space in their stadiums for smaller indoor sports like boxing, wrestling etc. After looking at the enthusiasm of the Bhiwani boys in boxing, I wish I had money to support these kids achieving their dream of winning an olympic medal.