Going for Gold

INDIA Gold-1, Silver-0, Bronze-2, Standing-50

Achievements

First ever gold medal in an individual event (Shooting) in Olympic history of 108 years.
First ever medal in Boxing

So, the two lines above are enough to satisfy a population of 115 Crore?

Lets check out some other results:

KENYA Gold-5, Silver-5, Bronze-4, Standing-15
Facing ongoing political unrest from 2007.

ETHIOPIA Gold-4, Silver-1, Bronze-2, Standing-18
Raging shortage of food and riots.

ZIMBABWE Gold-1, Silver-3, Bronze-0, Standing 38
Destroyed by internal conflicts and facing isolation from International community.

Are we still satisfied with the results? We always compare ourselves with China, lets look at how they fared in their own backyard.

Gold-51, Silver-21, Bronze-28, Standing-1

It was not long-before, when China won its first ever Gold Medal. In 1984, Los Angeles Games, Xu Haifeng shooted his way to the history of Chinese Olympics as its first ever Gold Medalist. And after 24 years China stand firmly at the top of table with 15 Gold medals more than a distant US.

Some people might argue that they got the home advantage and automatic entry to all the games, but does that mean getting an entry itself guarantees a gold or for that sake a medal? When competing amongst the best of bests, gate-crashers rarely held their heads high.

We should look at China as a source of Inspiration, not enviously. We are, to be frank, no competition to them. Of course we did got the all important breakthrough by winning our first ever Individual Olympic gold. But, its about planning and more importantly executing it. The Chinese planned and targeted each and every medal available. They had a systematic and individual approach towards all the metal pieces on for grab. They started nurturing there talented individuals for this Olympics from Sydney 2000. And we talk about preparing ourselves for London 2012.

The truth is that India need to provide financial security to the athletes. Yes, we are obsessed with Cricket, why not be? Its the only game in which we compete in top flight. We have earned a Test Playing nation status, of which there are only 8 (Zimbabwe suspended for now) other nations in the world. The expectations are met more often than not as compared to any other game we play. India was the world hockey power house. The same sponsor support our hockey and cricket teams. There are no financial problems, of course dreams of over night riches are self made by players, which to be frank depends entirely on a game's commercial value. Ussain Bolt or Michael Phelps even after winning heaps of gold medals, won't be the face of there country for the next 4 years. Jamaica have a lot more than running athletes and as for US, it will be all over when Monday night football kicks off.

China adopted a very basic approach- catch them young. The US athletes were afraid of a Chinese athlete, who according to them looked no older than 14 years and when China showed proof of age, they have to, simply eat their words and criticise them (debatable though). But that clearly underlines one thing, other Olympic powers have acknowledged and are afraid of China's might.

Had the Chinese media went crazy like their Indian counterparts, then they would have to stop broadcasting the events and have to keep interviewing the athletes all the time. There was a medal winner emerging every second hour for them.

We need to be realistic and plan to our strengths. Instead of planning for London 2012, we should start nurturing out forces for Olympics 2020. To plan is the first step, but to execute is the most important one. And who knows these things better than us Indians, we study the 5-year plans and Planning Commissions from Grade 1 to Grade 10. But as goes our basic instinct, we dream, rather to plan.

1 comments:

clandestine said...

nice one dude !!!