I am really satisfied with the points mentioned in the article. The IOC should do some proper planning with the help of some expereience people like P.T.Usha and Milka Singh.
I agree with P.T. Usha . We should aim for the 2012 Olympia. People with talent,around 11 or 12 should be picked up now and trained during their growth period. So by 2010 when they are 19 they can give that extra best to get a gold.
The real capability of a nation would be known only through the track field win in olympics.otherwise, all nations boast that theirs is the finest country and they smash any enemy. this is a common. play fairly and win medals or trophies which speaks about the committment and capability of a nation. just launching of space vehicles is not a sign of strength.create sports environment in all through nation or in selected states, spend money for infrastructure, conduct sports event on different levels, recruit foreign coaches.do any thing but win medals. planned approach can place india with 10 gold medals easily in next 10 years.
some important points to improve our sports culture:- 1:remove officials like sunil dutt,kps gill etc. who have no experiance of sports and are too unfit themselves to even look like a sports official.
2:form a comittee which has the sole task of finding raw talent from villages,schools and other places which does not come to notice.
3:once these talents have been noticed train them and keep them under observation for 1-2 years.if they are really capable then they should be given government sponsorship and they must be trained and groomed.the government should take care that the guardians of the trainees don't have to bear any kind of expenditure,this is the most common factor which discourage the parents to let their children join sports full time.
4:there should be a contract system according to which the sportsperson should be entitled to handsome rewards only if he/she performs well,if the person fails then only 25% of the total rewards should be given.(money is after all the prime motivator)
5:of course the facilities provided to the sportspersons should be world class.
6:in case of being ever caught in a doping scandle the person shd be suspended for lifetime.
Remember what happened to the weight lifters who trained in Blearus? Half were injured and the other half drug tainted. Then we had the hockey team, training all over the place in the world and ending up 7th. Train at home... there is no place like home... but compete internationally. Indians probably need more of Psychological traning than anything else. Why even Silver winner Rathore said he didn't believe he had it, his coach Russel had to keep reminding him. Kudos to Rathore that he managed to convince himself. Not to belittle Anju's efforts, but she probably would have done better had she been tougher mentally. As they say winning is a habit. Indians need to make a habit of it...
This wasn't to dispute PT Usha, she's one of the greatest atheletes India has produced. But we got to drop the habit of relying on someone else. The Chinese or the Koreans didn't go elsewhere to train. They trained at home under strict discipline, good guidance and had the hunger to win.
I live in China and its really amazing to see the way the chinese have captured the sports ground as well, They are setting a good example for us. Who have always been thinking very low about the Chinese. This is the country which was ruined by the first opium war and the Japanese looked at them as the poor / non-fit people and when the communist took over the words of Dr Ma was to change that impression and sports was encouraged not to prove but to make their people stronger and have since aggressively set plans and approached it systematically and we all can see the results. INDIA needs to do something about it. Our Atheletes are not encouraged very well by the govt. Goal are not set, corruption in sports team , team member working out for themselves then for the country..Its a long list. To cut it short INDIA has no GOALS nor has focused efforts to win medals. My chineses colleague say INDIA is equally a BIG country with huge population with Strong people so how is that you aren't able to win Medals....I say its good question Chris ..but I have no good answer to convience him about our failures without telling the fact of the country.
P.T. Usha's column is indeed food for thought, if ever the Indian sports organizers and the powers that rule, there, can think right. She is right when she states that India should start now itself for the 2012 Olympics, instead of the 2008 Olympics at Beijing. It is a foregone conclusion, that at the present rate of affairs with Indian sports, India will again fare miserably as they did in the past since 1960 onwards. So, India should probably not even send a team for the 2008 Olympics. This way they can hold their heads high.
Again we are trying to depend on other naitons to develop our systems and dignity. When we will learn I don't know. Why we should train in China when we can build our own facilities here and get coaches to train out athletes here. Is our country under a civil unrest or is the climate unfavourable for training. Why don't we all move to China or America or Europe to train ourselves. Our thinking is wrong. Sorry mr. Journalist you seem to be guiding the thinking of people in the wrong direction. For it our undeveloped and amateur media is to blame.
When I was watching Diving, the narrator mentioned how Guo JingJing (the Gold Medallist from China) left her home at 11 years of age to go train for the Olympics. Are Indian parents willing to let their aspiring Olympians do the same? Do our cultural beliefs (for example, "I want my son to be a Doctor or Engineer") leave any room for that kind of commitment?
As much as I agree with Usha on following Chinese methods of preparing our athletes for sporting events, I am not quite sure if sending our athletes to China is the ultimate answer. Spending time outside the country away from one's family would take an emotional toll on anyone, which in turn might affect physical performance. In addition, our athletes need to learn to perform their own research on training and diet and develop the ability to strategize instead of looking to their coaches for everything all the time.
I think that we can accomplish everything inside India. But...we have to start thinking of sports (Cricket aside) as a CAREER to win medals. It will help if there are private companies willing to sponsor our athletes so they can make good money (all I ever see are Cricketers in TV ads).
