Well, poor performance by Indians. Rather it will be better to say that zero performance by Indians. Why so? Most of of out players just practice hard for getting qualify and not for medals. If they qualify, then they got many things like free trip to athens, olympian with their name. It seems only the ultimate target of them. Above all the selection procedure. And one big question, why our players could perform even their best too. Bahuder Singh could make any legal throw. Why? Because he dont want to make a throw.Because he knows very well that he cannot perform even his best. What was the reason, everybody can gues. The matter should be investigated seriously if anybody intersted to improve the performance of the players at the topmost level. One example we can find here, that Pal Singh Sandhu claiming that Protima Kumari use to take alcohol at the parctice session. No responsiblity of a Person like Pal Singh Sandhu being a tariner to stop and ask her why she is doing so. What a responsible statement. Refer to a statment made by Vijay Kumar Malhota (MP)Dozens of syringes at the Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium is a matter of investigation and a clue how our sporting association works.
The article makes several assumptions. The asian countries have several sports that they either invented or have had a great command over
For e.g. China == Table Tennis Japan == Judo Indonesia == Badminton
This would be equivalent to having Cricket, Khabaddi and Kho-Kho as Olympic sports. But they are not.
One could argue that Hockey and Wrestling would be India's mainstay, but who really gives a shit about Hockey and Wrestling in India. There are no major televised events, nothing.
Ofcourse we have problems - no grass roots sports programs (I remember my PT class in school - it was crap), no college support for sports, corrupt sports ministry, no emphasis on building athletic facilities, low paid coaches etc. But it is refreshing to consider that we take part in sports that are not traditionally our forte.
To expect to succeed requires to be setup to succeed. Currently we are set up to fail. And to tell you the truth, I don't think anyone in India really gives a rat ass whether we get 5 medals or 50. We'll be happy but we won't care.
No doubt Rathore needs all the attention he is getting. He is the only Indian on the podium. But its a shame that we are celebrating his victory so much. It says the sorry state of Indian sports. India lost in the beginning itself when only 77 people participated. How come 1.2 billion send only 77 sportsmen. And India has many tribals who are proficient in archery, running, gymnastics just to fill their belly. May be we can use their services.
Its a shame that the Indian sports minister is happy to mention his 30 year old association with rathod rather than mentioning our overall performance. Is he media-crazy?
If we look at the Athens I feel very embrassed. Because we are spending very minimum amount of money in sports and we are not taking any perticular area to master in sports. if we look at CUBA in boxing , China in Table Tennis , Bulgaria in Gymanstics... they are all doing good in atleast on sport. but when we going to olympics everyone will talk about medals.we need to put successfull Sports person as Minister then only they can understand what need to be done. what sunil dutt will know about sports. his carrer is different and what he is doing now is different. if we want to excell in Olympics we need to select some Team Games like Boxing , Shooting, Wrestling ... there we had so many categories to win medals. Atleast we need to plan for the next olympics from now itself otherwise it is waste of Flight tickets. Everytime without doing anything to sports everyone will wait for Medals and finally we will win only MEDAL . Also Peoples Approach also need to change. we need to encourage all the games other than CRICKET because it is not a Internationally Recognized. if we see IRAQ also made till semi-finals in FOOTBALL.. I hope all the parents will change their mindset.
Winning at Olympics in my opinion is not about population alone. Factors such as government funding, availability of public infrastructure such as swimming pools/tennis courts, reasonably priced equipment etc matter to a great extent. While we cannot expect to fix all that in one fell swoop, may be a more focused approach would help...say instead of competing against China/Japan, we say that we will focus only on 2 or 3 disciplines and spend our money there and aim to get a few gold medals...and then take it from there.
Another thing we could do is pay the money to corporate bidders with defined goals such as setting up infrastructure or training facilities for athletes etc. I am sure if companies like Reliance or Tata were chartered with producing few athletes who could at least reach the finals in a few events..they would definitely accomplish it in a few years time. The companies can get free publicity from those athletes...who can enter into contracts to endorse the companies etc... All in all...it just needs commitment at some level...and that could come if the people are outrages...but they are not because...like it or not...Olympics s not a big deal to the average guy.
Most blame goes to criket focused country. How many countries play criket? Few. Is it Olympic worthy game? No. Maybe Sachin makes more moeny than the whole budget set for other Games. Indians like to cling to slave mentality of British. In fact British never left India. They are still here in shape of "Kaley Angrez". No wonder india can't shine in Olympic.
RE:Wht the hell r u doing for this ????
by Sarma on Aug 29, 2004 06:19 PM
I know I can't win so I keep indoors and mind my own job. I don't go about wasting taxpayers money, hard earned money paid by people like you and me,on costly trips and the so called infrastructure of which these non performing athletes are always complaining about - as if they can do miracles if they have a certain brand of sjhoes.
a. India can resort to what the middle east countries are doing i.e., buying out good atheletes from Poor African countries like Ethiopia , Kenya etc. Instead of spending millions on guys like Anil Kumar ( Discus) & Bahadur Singh ( Shot Put ) both of whom failed to even register a single valid throw in the qualifying round itself, the money could be well spent on these foreign atheletes & we can salvage some pride by moving up on the medal tally.
b. Other option is to catch the young talent from schools & colleges & provide them with the best of facilities ( Give a thought to the facilities provided to MPs ) & also provide them with a secure future by way of jobs in Public sector enterprises.
The main deterrent for kids to go after other sports besides cricket is that the academics would suffer & in order to secure their future , they resort to studies & give up on sports completely.
