It is not everyday that you see India and Olympics mentioned in the same sentence... Just a couple of weeks ago, I was interested in knowing more about the Indian contingent being sent to Beijing and I had tough luck - The Indian Olympic Association's (IOA) website was NON-EXISTENT, or if the site did exist it was dysfunctional anyway. Now you get the point. I saw some interesting lowlights of India's history of Olympic non-performance at this site - http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news?slug=ap-olympiclaggard&prov=ap&type=lgns. If you have not cracked up in a while, don't forget to read IOA Chairman Suresh Kalmadi's comment - "India should not expect too many medals in China”. If you asked " is one too many", join the club.
Indian ethos in all sincerity does not seem to particularly care about Olympic glory despite the occasional proclamations to the contrary that you get to hear from a few frustrated souls... You can't really expect much from a nation of spectators whose favorite sports delusions begin and end with cricket for all practical purposes. Now someone could argue if cricket were an Olympic sport, India would win a medal or two. There may be some merit to that contention - India is after all the current 20/20 world champion and a one-time (1983) one-day cricket world champion.. But cricket is a team sport and they don't give 11 medals when a team with as many players wins something... So that takes us back to the issue of India's well-chronicled history of Olympic futility that spans several decades - Why does a nation of 1.1 billion people (and counting) struggle to produce one genuine Olympic gold-medal-calibre sportsperson? How come a country that has no trouble producing successful doctors and engineers and technocrats diaspored to all over the planet, not be able to translate such success when it comes to producing world-class sportspersons? How can a civilization that boasts of centuries-old ithihasas and grandmom-narrated bedtime stories embellishing the cosmic valor of mythological kings and princes domineering celestial worlds, not be able to produce a single warm-body in modern times capable of winning a piece of metal competing against international mortals here on this planet? At what point in history did India's sensational past morph into present-day mediocrity when it comes to sporting acheivement? Can anyone see the light of day on this conundrum?
1 comment:
yep, one is too many. and we've had our fill already. as long as we celebrate graceful losers, we wont ever have proud winners.
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