The result is before us. Honesty is an infinite, all-encompassing term, considering its importance in everything we do in all walks of life. India immediately needs to turn honest in selection of athletes and teams, in providing quality infrastructure and diet to athletes, in providing unstinted official and unofficial support to athletes, in offering monetary incentives to them, and in giving them due recognition without vindictiveness and bias, and in several other areas.
Instead, we in India indulge in gimmickry. Nor will avoiding straight answers and hiding behind 'hope-to-win' and 'it-all-depends-on-the-draw' do any good to Indian sports. At best, these things can take the general, gullible public away from reality. Truth is that very often athletes are pulled out of their training schedule and forced to attend such functions, so that sports administrators could bask in borrowed glory, while athletes' rhythm is broken.
Unfortunately, everything listed above has either happened or is continuing to happen. No harm at all in producing such feel-good audio-video messages from our best cricketers just before an important sports event.
Still, one may, at the same time, ask this: how much will these one-liners help Indian athletes beat the opposition and win medals at the Olympics? Everyone knows the answer. Just before the Olympics as well, hype was built around the Indian athletes who were going to compete in Rio.
The performance was disappointing , to say the least. This year, Covid has dealt a huge blow. Domestic sporting events were cancelled, and foreign training and competitions were mostly off the table for Indian athletes. Countries hit hard by the pandemic are also expected to play by a more stringent set of rules , testing athletes daily for a week before arriving at the Olympic Village, and isolating them for three days once they do. India has the worst population to medals ratio at the Olympics.
The reason India always consistently falls short on the world forum is deep-rooted and systemic. Perhaps the biggest reason is that the country has a notorious reputation for neglecting and under-funding sports. The cricket-crazed nation has paid little attention to any other sport. Currently, India recognizes 59 National Sports Federations , up from 48 in This is crucial because not recognizing sports had in the past led to clashes between the federations and Indian Olympics Association and dried up funding.
With athletes across 18 sports disciplines, India had sent its biggest-ever contingent to Tokyo Olympics. Indian athletes participated in 69 cumulative events across disciplines, the highest ever for the country. Also see This is India's best ever rank-finish in Olympics since - check out complete standings.
India's best-ever Olympics show came despite an underwhelming performance from the shooters, usually the most consistent athletes in recent Games. While boxing was also expected to bring more than a single bronze medal, there were also a few near-hits: the valiant efforts of the women's hockey team, Aditi Ashok in women's golf and Deepak Punia in men's freestyle 86kg wrestling. Particularly satisfying were the exploits of India's women in blue in hockey, a game they once dominated with clinical ruthlessness.
The women's team were lauded as superstars with their fourth spot while a euphoric India celebrated the country's first hockey medal in 41 years, hoping the hard-earned men's bronze would help them to regain their past glory. The most successful hockey nation in Olympic history, with eight men's titles, India had not won a medal since the Moscow Games when they topped the podium. A post shared by The Olympic Games olympics. Abhinav Bindra, whose metre air rifle triumph at the Games was India's lone gold medal previously, summed up the enormity of Chopra's success.
Take a bow, young man! You have fulfilled a nation's dream. Thank you! Also, welcome to the club - a much needed addition! Extremely proud. I am so delighted for you. As we celebrate this marvelous week in Indian sporting history, let's also take some time out to plan the road ahead. How do we keep the medals coming? It'll just take a moment. Looks like you have exceeded the limit to bookmark the image. Remove some to bookmark this image.
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