This is not a criticsing post but a different viewpoint. I started to watch Olympics in 1984 as my father used to be a sports aficionado and he bought his first tv set on the eve of Los Angeles Olympics. 1984 were a boycotted Olympics, whole of Eastern Bloc did not participate except Romania (who came second). India returned empty handed, only P.T. Usha came close to winning a medal and became a household name. My father was saying that other countries start preparing for Olympics 4 years in advance but India does not even start even 2 months ago. He was quite right, he knew the sports specially Indian sports really well.
There are several reasons that why a country does well and vice versa. In 1996 Atlanta Olympics Great Britain won a solitary gold, lowest in their Olympic history. They decided to change the structure of sports in the country and started to run programs, lottery funding started and the funding budgets were allotted to various sports departments and here we are in 2012 and Great Britain is number three with 22 gold medals and more counting.
China is another success story. However all that glitter is not gold. China is not winning so many gold medals by fluke. China is run by an iron hand communist party. One of the gold medal winner girl has not met her family for 8 years. Losing 8 years of one's life to win a gold for her country- PRICELESS. Doping is another way to succeed. Who knows but it might be possible that China has found a undetectable drug and which is helping in improved performances for their athletes. Have you heard of Florence Griffith Joyner? He was the flying women but she only lived for 37 years, no one admitted but there were suspicions for excessive doping. America has won lots of gold medals but how many have been clean? We might never know these answers.
In 1970s and 80s , East Germany used to be a formidable sporting nation. They won more medals than America in Olympics. The real reasons behind the success came into open when the case of doping in East Germany came out in the open. Several women became men because of the excessive use of Steroids, a whole generation paid the price for the use of steroids. Where is Germany now in Olympics? Not on top certainly. You can win gold if you want to if you are ready to pay the price for it.
Haryana has shown to India that if you find the talent, nurture the talent and provide them with facilities then even Indians can do well in the sport. Until Vijender won the bronze, there were hardly used to be any Indian participation in the international boxing. A well run program has changed it, 2012 Olympics had 7 Indian boxers in the main competition and had it not been for the bad judging, we should have won at least 2 medals.
Winning in sports is like any other management process, if you set up a firm and provide it with best of facilities and management, it will definitely succeed. Indian hockey can do well if it is managed rightly but at the moment opposite is happening. Dhoni showed the advantages of good management. We are the world champions in cricket. We can win at the Olympics as well if we want to but with 1.2 bn people our priorities are different and should stay different.
I will conclude to say well done to all Indians who represented India in 2012 Olympics. That girl Madhura should have been punished for her buffonery, she got scot free.
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