Abhinav Bindra wins India's first ever individual gold at the Olympics. Well done and Congrats!!
Now that that's done, lets come down to earth shall we? Abhinav Bindra is the reigning world champion in 10m Air Rifle event. Abhinav Bindra owns "an air-conditioned shooting range with a totally computerised Target Transportation System of international standards". Let me repeat, he owns it. He does not live near it, does not practice in it or any of the ilk. He owns it. Given all this, if he had returned with anything less than a medal, it should have been a national shame.
I know I am being harsh on the guy and given the fact that he had suffered a career threatening back injury some time back, he has done extremely well to make the comeback but once having made that comeback, he was always expected to win.
Now this brings me to the brass tracks so to speak. The point of this blog post. With all the praises raining from all kinds of politicians right from Prime Minister to President to Railway Minister, one would be forgiven for thinking that Bindra has done something impossible. Maybe made a return journey to The Sun. Or maybe first man to fly with using his own limbs. Or maybe he breached the speed of light while traveling on his Hero Cycle. I don't know. But it sure sounds like that.
For the uninitiated, getting a gold medal in Olympics is very very easy. A country like Ethiopia has 14 Gold Medals to its credit and most have been won in long distance running and are individual in nature. Don't get me wrong. I have nothing but respect for Ethiopia and Ethiopians but surely a country of a billion which is a supposed upcoming superpower should do better? But what do we have? A whole nation going gaga over a medal which in reality should have been almost a certainty.
Now that we know there is a problem, lets try and analyse it shall we?
Indians have traditionally done well in sports of skill and intellect. Hockey (when it was about skill and not about stamina and power), Chess etc. And now comes shooting. I agree that holding that rifle and shooting is no mean feat but it comes under the purview of skill sport rather than one based on power and stamina IMHO. Why does this happen? Why are we good only at skill and not at the physical aspect of sports? Reason is very simple. Skill is something you are born with. You can hone it and improve it by practice and coaching but being born with it is something very essential, at least in my view.
To take a very simplistic statistical view, In a nation of a billion, even if .001% are born to be world beaters, we will have 10000 of us who are potential medal winners. What is missing you ask? The answer is twofold. At first level, the will is missing from the politicians who also masquerade as sports administrators and due to this lack of will, there is a lack of infrastructure. So what we have is a lot of un-honed talent which is wasting away in some chai shop or at a construction site. We dont have infrastructure and good quality academies which will take these potential world beaters and turn them into world beaters.
We need some professional administrators who are not doing it as a part time job but are paid for doing it full time. We need people to look beyond a game played by 11 highly talented jokers (read cricket) whose fortunes will put a sinusoidal wave to shame and look at other sports like football, hockey, athletics to name a few. We need money coming in via sports budget and sponsorships and we need people capable enough to manage this money without filling it into their personal lockers.
We need a change in attitude, a change in mindset and a lot of such things and if I take them all up, this post will be even bigger than what it already is. But we surely need something that will change the whole scene of sports in India. Where will it come from and who will it come from is something I don't know and can't even begin to think. We can only hope that a day will come when rather than being ecstatic at a gold medal won after generations, we will be sad at a silver medal- for it would mean a lost gold....
10 comments:
I am not sure why you say 'He is expected to win just because he had a hi-fi equipment'. Do you say, noone else has it in the world? Do you say if I buy that equipment and practice I can also win Gold in olympics? It is far from that!
He deserves credit. So let us give him the credit. But at the same time I agree that, there is no need to go too much gaga over it! One man is trying for 8 gold and here one nation is going gaga over 1 gold. We need to change and set high goals!
"We need a change in attitude, a change in mindset"-->Thats about it!
We need to bel, that apart from studies, children can actually make a career out of sports! Of course, we need to 'hone' the talents and provide an infrastructure for the same!
But, Mind-set is the key word!
@prunthaban: Exactly, we need to set 'high standards' for ourselves! Being satisfied with one gold is funny, ridiculous actually! :|
@prunthaban he is not expected to win because he has the equipment. He is expected to win because he is the reigning champ. That he has the equipment only adds to the fact. I am not saying he does not deserve credit. Like I said before anything else, u need natural talent. He has it but also has been lucky enough to own infrastructure to hone that skill. There would be 100s of them better than him but would not do as well for the lack of infrastructure. He has brought the gold, he deserves to be congratulated and applauded for it and thats about it.
As u said, we need to set our goals higher.
@thegreatone's home: Exactly what I am trying to say. We need to start thinking that sports is not just for naughty boys who don't study. Give the kid a choice between n different things he can take up as a profession like academics, sports, singing, dancing, art etc and let the kid choose. Till we have such mentality, nothing can happen. Hope our generation when we do get down to parenting, will do a little better.
a high paying job, air conditioned offices, fancy lifestyles, respect and social security for life
vs
lack of support from government, pathetic infrastructure, lack of minimum social security if you fail to make it big, dust, sweat and blood
is it all really worth it?
@sitaram
which is why, system needs to change first. How is nto a question easily answered tho...
pointing problems has been a trait with indians! how about providing some solutions Sir?
@migos
While I cant provide the whole solution to the problem in question, I have given some tit-bits of parts of the solution. Do read the last and last but one paras!!
At some level, we all pretend to tune into the Olympics to admire human athleticism.To begin with, there is hardly any infrastructure, and talent is not tapped. If it is tapped, it is not groomed well enough. Perhaps that is not surprising. India’s performance at the Olympics has lagged behind even tiny countries whose population is fraction the size. International sport is of course an exercise in national chauvinism. What exactly, has held India back from Olympic greatness is the stuff of much debate.
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