With less than a week to go for the biggest sports extravaganza, it seems we don't care much for the games. The country which feasts on any kind of mediocre game of bat and ball, does find the ultimate test of power, skills and stamina interesting. Why? May be because historically India hasn't been doing so great? There is certainly some truth in it.
From 1988 Seoul onwards, I have always been a very keep follower of the games. I remember watching 1 hour coverage of the day's event on door-darshan then and hardly could we see an indian in that coverage. Indian hockey was the only hope in 88 games and to qualify for semis India had to just draw against the Great Britain. GB hockey then wasn't a great force to reckon with but we lost 3-1 to them and GB went on to win the Gold. The same thing happened in 2000 Sydney where we had to win against Poland for semis and we were leading 1-0 till the 65th odd minute. In a pulsating game India lost it in last 5 minutes. We all were disappointed, the all 3 of us in a big hostel cafeteria. The hostel which used to be jam-packed during the india cricket's down under tour of 99. Out of the 8 ODIs and the 5 odd tests India couldn't win even a single match. This series earned Mr Agarkar the nick-name bombay duck. But still people were getting up at 5:00 am to watch the matches. But nobody turned up to watch the intesting hockey game.
That probably tells the sorry tale. It is the "chicken and egg". We don't watch because we don't win or we don't win because we don't care to watch?
For a change 2006 brought some wave of change when Vijendar qualified in semis. Some comments by Bipasha also acted as catalyst and suddenly everybody developed interest in games. The commonwealth games hosting and decent performance in Asian games also kept the interest alive. Ironically the commonwealth games are more famous and still talked about because of the scams and not because India's good performance. Does anybody even know?
Anyhow what to expect this year. Unfortunately even this year there is no sure medal hope. We came empty handed in 1984, 1988 and 1992. As in 1988 the hope was hockey, 1984 it was PT Usha who missed by a whisker 1992 was even a disappointing story. only Ramesh Krishnan and Leander Paes came close to winning a medal before losing out in the quarters.
If you draw parallels with Mahabharat then I do not see many Arjuns. Basically there are many Abhimanyus who will fight till the end and win hearts for sure if couldn't win medals. Mahabharata the epic, gives almost all kinds of characters to draw parallels with any situation.On of the early incident of Mahabharat is with Ganga and her 8 children.
8 Vasus (some variety of God) were cursed in heaven and asked to do term on earth. They were born to ganga and Ganga relieved them from the term by throwing them into the river soon after they were born.
Every Olympics the fate of most of our contingent was like that of the Vasus. Although here the players had the will and fighting spirit and they most of the time did the best they could some even broken the national records. But sadly the end result which went on the lines of the Vasus, i.e. elimination on Day1.
Taking a Leaf from the software programming this year the event have already started on Day 0 before the opening ceremony with some ranking events in Archery. While the Korean team which has a legally blind player broke the world record in the ranking event itself India finished the last (12th) in men and some 8th in Women. Ranking event will only decide whom you play against. So Indian Archery team will be up against 5th ranked Japan in pre-quarter finals. The top 4 made it directly to quarters. This is a good new for Indian men team as now they will get more time to prepare for the individual round.
Todays (28 July) Menu Card
Events(India): Archery, Boxing, Badminton, TT, Tennis, WeightLifting, Rowing, Shooting
Wishful Medal hope : Shooting VIjay Kumar (10-meter Air rifle)
Arjuns :Vijendra singh (Boxing)
Abhimanyus:
Badminton : (Pkashyap, Jwala/Diju, Ashwini/Jwala),
Vijay Kumar (Shooting)
Tennis Doubles: The squad with "fighting spirit" : Paes, Bhupati, Rohan and Saina.
Shiv Thapa (boxing),
Formality : Rowing, Weightlifting
From 1988 Seoul onwards, I have always been a very keep follower of the games. I remember watching 1 hour coverage of the day's event on door-darshan then and hardly could we see an indian in that coverage. Indian hockey was the only hope in 88 games and to qualify for semis India had to just draw against the Great Britain. GB hockey then wasn't a great force to reckon with but we lost 3-1 to them and GB went on to win the Gold. The same thing happened in 2000 Sydney where we had to win against Poland for semis and we were leading 1-0 till the 65th odd minute. In a pulsating game India lost it in last 5 minutes. We all were disappointed, the all 3 of us in a big hostel cafeteria. The hostel which used to be jam-packed during the india cricket's down under tour of 99. Out of the 8 ODIs and the 5 odd tests India couldn't win even a single match. This series earned Mr Agarkar the nick-name bombay duck. But still people were getting up at 5:00 am to watch the matches. But nobody turned up to watch the intesting hockey game.
That probably tells the sorry tale. It is the "chicken and egg". We don't watch because we don't win or we don't win because we don't care to watch?
For a change 2006 brought some wave of change when Vijendar qualified in semis. Some comments by Bipasha also acted as catalyst and suddenly everybody developed interest in games. The commonwealth games hosting and decent performance in Asian games also kept the interest alive. Ironically the commonwealth games are more famous and still talked about because of the scams and not because India's good performance. Does anybody even know?
Anyhow what to expect this year. Unfortunately even this year there is no sure medal hope. We came empty handed in 1984, 1988 and 1992. As in 1988 the hope was hockey, 1984 it was PT Usha who missed by a whisker 1992 was even a disappointing story. only Ramesh Krishnan and Leander Paes came close to winning a medal before losing out in the quarters.
If you draw parallels with Mahabharat then I do not see many Arjuns. Basically there are many Abhimanyus who will fight till the end and win hearts for sure if couldn't win medals. Mahabharata the epic, gives almost all kinds of characters to draw parallels with any situation.On of the early incident of Mahabharat is with Ganga and her 8 children.
8 Vasus (some variety of God) were cursed in heaven and asked to do term on earth. They were born to ganga and Ganga relieved them from the term by throwing them into the river soon after they were born.
Every Olympics the fate of most of our contingent was like that of the Vasus. Although here the players had the will and fighting spirit and they most of the time did the best they could some even broken the national records. But sadly the end result which went on the lines of the Vasus, i.e. elimination on Day1.
Taking a Leaf from the software programming this year the event have already started on Day 0 before the opening ceremony with some ranking events in Archery. While the Korean team which has a legally blind player broke the world record in the ranking event itself India finished the last (12th) in men and some 8th in Women. Ranking event will only decide whom you play against. So Indian Archery team will be up against 5th ranked Japan in pre-quarter finals. The top 4 made it directly to quarters. This is a good new for Indian men team as now they will get more time to prepare for the individual round.
Todays (28 July) Menu Card
Events(India): Archery, Boxing, Badminton, TT, Tennis, WeightLifting, Rowing, Shooting
Wishful Medal hope : Shooting VIjay Kumar (10-meter Air rifle)
Arjuns :Vijendra singh (Boxing)
Abhimanyus:
Badminton : (Pkashyap, Jwala/Diju, Ashwini/Jwala),
Vijay Kumar (Shooting)
Tennis Doubles: The squad with "fighting spirit" : Paes, Bhupati, Rohan and Saina.
Shiv Thapa (boxing),
Formality : Rowing, Weightlifting
I don't think we were good in cricket from the beginning itself... though I have no idea why then cricket got picked up and other sports not...
ReplyDeleteSad results for men archery :(
Yes. Yet again the ar hers lost due to preasuee
ReplyDelete