The saga of Indian sports from Milkha Singh to golden boy Abhinav Bindra is uninspiring. The first reaction of ecstasy has gone as quickly as it came. Then the final realization was it enough to fire up 100crore population? 50years ago Milkha Singh lost bronze medal in Rome Olympics from then on there are not many motivating stories but few shades of success in the form of PT Usha and Karanam Malleswari.
First time in the history of Olympics Indian hockey team failed to qualify for the games. Shame! First time history is created by winning 3 individual medals at the games. Incredible! Beijing Olympics has shown both sides of a coin to us. People may criticize our performance at the games is below excellence pointing at 100 and odd medals to China and US. Small countries like Jamaica and Ethiopia too got medals at the games. Yes. But does anyone look closely at the numbers – China entered with 736 athletes, US with around 500, Australia with 430. At the same time 56 athletes from India participated in the games. The medal tally reflects the performance evenly. China and US around 100 medals each, Australia got 45 medals and India 3, if we compare them at ratios all of them stand at the same pedestal.
That doesn’t mean India did great at the games. No doubt, many of our athletes not qualified to play the games. Whom to blame? The Government! It is easy to pass the buckle. But how many parents in India are ready to encourage their children to join sports at the expense of studies, other than cricket. How many companies are ready to endorse sports persons other than cricket? Unless, they achieve something on their own at the international arena! Many talented athletes in the country are looking in vain to get sponsorships, better coaches and improved infrastructure.
India is competitive in technology but fails to convert the same in sports. How many universities in the country provide sports related courses for instance? Sports science is a major in some of the Australian, US and European universities. Sport and Exercise science, Sports management, Sports marketing, sports psychology, sports therapy, sports tourism, strength and conditioning science are some of the courses to mention. Our education system has to go a long way before adopting some of these courses and motivate our youth to take up them and government to provide employment opportunities rather than reserving quota for sports.
Australia won most of its medals in water, because their children are trained in the schools from kindergarten age in swimming. Our primary schools hardly provide any sport equipment. In the Western world, sports are well blend with studies at the school level itself. If a boy or girl is good at some sport they are trained in that game along with the studies. But in India, you are on your own. By any chance the child has the talent, where to go, with whom to practice and how to expose to competition? Lots of sportspersons do not get a chance to travel to big sporting events held outside the country and the reason always is the lack of funds.
So when occasionally people like Bindra win any medal, we have to pinch ourselves so that the truth sinks. Yes really an Indian won a gold medal at Olympics level. It is not that India is a complete failure as far as sports is concerned.
Once Indian hockey team is at top with 11 Olympic gold medals, we produced world class Badminton players like Prakash Padukone, young talent like Saina Nehwal entered the quarters of the women's singles event at the recently concluded Olympics, Grand masters like Viswanath Anand in Chess, World champs like Geet Seth in Billiards and snooker, Indian men’s golf team won silver at the 2006 Asian Games, Equestrian team bronze, Indian Volleyball team ranked 5th in Asia and 27th in world rankings. India always did well at Asian Games and Commonwealth Games but failed to do so at Olympics. Lack of exposure at world level for our sportsmen and women and world class training reflected in their performance when they are asked to do.
In 2010, New Delhi will host the first ever Indian Grand Prix. Although there are no F1 circuits in India at present, there is an F3 circuit at Sri Perumbudur near Chennai. Delhi will also host 2010 Commonwealth Games too, the second-largest multi-sport event in the world. According to several informal statistics, India is the country in the world with the lowest number of total Olympic medals per capita (of those countries that have actually won at least one medal). Do statistics change for better by holding international events at home? Unlikely! For sports in this fiscal just over Rs 11billion is allocated. We have so many programs on the paper but so little to spend on them. Most of our budget goes for administration salaries and establishment.
So, next time when India fares badly at any games don’t lose heart. Because neither the government nor the citizens of this country has any flair for sports. However, do expect for yet another Abhinav Bindra or Rathore or, Jitender Kumar to rise to the occasion and make it to the top. One day hope all these individual efforts cumulative into a collective performance. Till then kudos to those who believe in sports.
First time in the history of Olympics Indian hockey team failed to qualify for the games. Shame! First time history is created by winning 3 individual medals at the games. Incredible! Beijing Olympics has shown both sides of a coin to us. People may criticize our performance at the games is below excellence pointing at 100 and odd medals to China and US. Small countries like Jamaica and Ethiopia too got medals at the games. Yes. But does anyone look closely at the numbers – China entered with 736 athletes, US with around 500, Australia with 430. At the same time 56 athletes from India participated in the games. The medal tally reflects the performance evenly. China and US around 100 medals each, Australia got 45 medals and India 3, if we compare them at ratios all of them stand at the same pedestal.
That doesn’t mean India did great at the games. No doubt, many of our athletes not qualified to play the games. Whom to blame? The Government! It is easy to pass the buckle. But how many parents in India are ready to encourage their children to join sports at the expense of studies, other than cricket. How many companies are ready to endorse sports persons other than cricket? Unless, they achieve something on their own at the international arena! Many talented athletes in the country are looking in vain to get sponsorships, better coaches and improved infrastructure.
India is competitive in technology but fails to convert the same in sports. How many universities in the country provide sports related courses for instance? Sports science is a major in some of the Australian, US and European universities. Sport and Exercise science, Sports management, Sports marketing, sports psychology, sports therapy, sports tourism, strength and conditioning science are some of the courses to mention. Our education system has to go a long way before adopting some of these courses and motivate our youth to take up them and government to provide employment opportunities rather than reserving quota for sports.
Australia won most of its medals in water, because their children are trained in the schools from kindergarten age in swimming. Our primary schools hardly provide any sport equipment. In the Western world, sports are well blend with studies at the school level itself. If a boy or girl is good at some sport they are trained in that game along with the studies. But in India, you are on your own. By any chance the child has the talent, where to go, with whom to practice and how to expose to competition? Lots of sportspersons do not get a chance to travel to big sporting events held outside the country and the reason always is the lack of funds.
So when occasionally people like Bindra win any medal, we have to pinch ourselves so that the truth sinks. Yes really an Indian won a gold medal at Olympics level. It is not that India is a complete failure as far as sports is concerned.
Once Indian hockey team is at top with 11 Olympic gold medals, we produced world class Badminton players like Prakash Padukone, young talent like Saina Nehwal entered the quarters of the women's singles event at the recently concluded Olympics, Grand masters like Viswanath Anand in Chess, World champs like Geet Seth in Billiards and snooker, Indian men’s golf team won silver at the 2006 Asian Games, Equestrian team bronze, Indian Volleyball team ranked 5th in Asia and 27th in world rankings. India always did well at Asian Games and Commonwealth Games but failed to do so at Olympics. Lack of exposure at world level for our sportsmen and women and world class training reflected in their performance when they are asked to do.
In 2010, New Delhi will host the first ever Indian Grand Prix. Although there are no F1 circuits in India at present, there is an F3 circuit at Sri Perumbudur near Chennai. Delhi will also host 2010 Commonwealth Games too, the second-largest multi-sport event in the world. According to several informal statistics, India is the country in the world with the lowest number of total Olympic medals per capita (of those countries that have actually won at least one medal). Do statistics change for better by holding international events at home? Unlikely! For sports in this fiscal just over Rs 11billion is allocated. We have so many programs on the paper but so little to spend on them. Most of our budget goes for administration salaries and establishment.
So, next time when India fares badly at any games don’t lose heart. Because neither the government nor the citizens of this country has any flair for sports. However, do expect for yet another Abhinav Bindra or Rathore or, Jitender Kumar to rise to the occasion and make it to the top. One day hope all these individual efforts cumulative into a collective performance. Till then kudos to those who believe in sports.
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