The Hopes and Dreams of Indian Sports Fans

chillibreeze writer — Sailesh

The Indian Olympic history is an interesting one. For such a populous country the complete medal tally for all the Olympics combined is eight gold, three silver and three bronze. We dominated in one sport, like nobody did in any sport (perhaps with the exception of U.S. in Basketball). But our last gold in hockey was in the 1980 Olympics which too were boycotted by most of the hockey powers. Since then, in the last twenty-eight years, our teams have not even entered the semifinals of any Olympics Hockey event, let alone won a medal. And this year we reached the nadir as far as Olympic hockey is concerned. India did not even qualify for the event.

Is there hope at all India in the Olympics? Actually just like most of the things in today’s India, there are great reasons for optimism. For most of the early years in India’s Olympic participation, India was expected to come back with just one medal - a hockey gold - and later, any hockey medal. That aspiration also stopped by the late ‘80s. There was no expectation from the Indian contingent. India was pleasantly surprised when Leander Paes got a bronze medal in tennis three Olympics ago. That trend continued in the next Olympics with a weightlifting bronze by Karnam Malleshwari, and then Rajyavardhan Rathore got silver in shooting in the last Olympics.

Looking at the contingent that went to Beijing, there are at two world champions in our shooting contingent and one world champion in our archery team. We also have two legends of world tennis in Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi representing us in tennis.

But honestly the days of depending on just one or two people to get the country on the medals tally is gone. We have a real program and a pipeline to produce champions in place now and as more and more of our kids and the young people tap into it, the better off we will be. In a few decades, India will be fighting for the top slot of the Olympics medal tally along with China and the U.S. This of course will be true for a lot of fields apart from sports as well.

Future stars have already started coming from all over. If Sania Mirza took Indian tennis by storm two years back, Saina Nehwal is doing that to badminton. Dola Bannerji is the world champion in archery. We have Manavjeet Singh among our numerous shooting world champions. What is striking is the age of these athletes. They are very young and the sky is the limit as far as their potential is concerned. And unlike our past world champions and sports heroes, they do not have to do it alone. There are multi-million rupee trusts like Mittal foundation, which are making sure that any talent discovered is nurtured. Sports infrastructure is also slowly becoming a priority with the government. And many past sports champions are starting their own academy to groom budding talent.

It is always great to be an Indian, but as the future unfolds, it will be a great feeling to be an Indian sports fan too.

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Sailesh writes for chillibreeze.

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