Hope the upward surge continues …….
Author :
subramanyam
Blog :Truth & Light
Date: 8/16/2012 4:54:34 PM
We have had our best Olympic haul in terms of medals so far. Sushil kumar , Vijay Kumar, Mary kom , Saina Nehwal , Gagan narang and Yogeswar dutt have made all of us proud. True, we did not have a gold, but we did have 2 Silver and 4 bronze medals which means that this is the Olympics where the maximum number of Indians graced the podium. I am really proud of all the medal winners, I salute to the patience and perseverance of each of these persons in achieving their Olympic dream.
The first Olympics I keenly followed was the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, I was in my class VIII back then, folks in Dooradarshan (no 24/7 news channels then) used to say that there was a medal drought for 16 years and there was a lot of hope from the Indian contingent. Leander paes winning a bronze in those games ended those 16 year medal drought. Then another bronze in Sydney, a silver in Athens made me feel that India is a single medal nation in the Olympics. However, Beijing and London have given us more reasons to cheer.
I would link our good show in Olympics to our economic prudence. Indians athletes always had the talent, it was the lack of the facilities and lack of trust in sport as a career that stopped Indians from excelling in the sporting arena. The consistent upward surge at the games from 1996 should be attributed to the rising living standards in the country. More awareness, more money at the disposal helped the Indian middle class support the sports dreams of their kids. It was this economic prudence that brought the foreign coaches and a decent sports infrastructure to this country. These factors along with the dedication of our athletes hold the promise that there are better days for sports in India.
All said and done, we have not achieved too much as well, we have a long way to go. I think it would be a better idea to concentrate on some disciplines (say boxing, badminton,wrestling, archery, shooting .. etc) that hold a promise for more medals for us in the future and excel in them, very much the same way as China did in the 90’s. With a hope that India’s upward surge in the medals tally continues in Rio and the games to come……
