A Common Fan’s Sports Diary

The country is counting on you once again

The Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) has been worried for a long time the venues will not be completed in time for the 2010 games in Delhi. The organizing committee on the other hand have continued to promise everyone that the nothing of that sort will happen. The media also had chosen to ignore the matter for the longest possible time.

Now things have fallen so much behind schedule that the CGF president wants the prime minister’s intervention to speed up things. That’s just step away from asking for divine intervention.

The Organizing Committee are totally unruffled, however, coming out with yet another statement that Delhi will be ready at any cost.
The ball is now in the prime minister and the sports minister’s court. With the media having suddenly risen to the occasion, the ministers are definitely aware of the gravity of the situation. They can either play the autonomy card a la Mani Shankar Aiyer; claiming that government intervention will be tantamount to a violation of the IOC Charter (which says that sports bodies should be run autonomously) or they can save India from losing face in front of the entire world – something which will seriously dent our chances of hosting any major events in the future.

If no action is taken and the CGF takes the unprecedented step of moving the Games to Australia (which has already been placed on the stand bye) it will be more than the small matter of 12,000 crores going down the drain. These games are meant to showcase what modern India is all about – a country on the rise and on the move. Not being able to put it all together will highlight the exact opposite and jeopardize all our claims to being a new world power.

To the average Indian sports fan, it will hurt as much as the failure to qualify for the men’s hockey event of the last Olympics, if not more. There is so much at stake here.

The sports minister had sacked Indian Hockey Federation chief KPS Gill after the Beijing debacle. But the damage had already been done. So waiting for the present organizing committee to fail will be a calamitous mistake. The minsters need to pre-empt that and take some quick measures.

Disbanding the current one and getting a more professional and capable team will be a good place to start. A leaf can be taken out of the Athens 2004 example, when caught in similar situation, Greece averted a modern day Greek tragedy by getting the best man or shall we say woman to do the job. Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki was brought back to head the organizing committee and she re-energized the preparations ensuring a highly successful hosting of the games.

There is no shortage of capable people in this country who can handle an operation of this magnitude and save India’s blushes. The two ministers just need to put one in charge before its too late.

But do the two of them have the courage to take such a decision. Removing Suresh Kalmadi will not be easy. He is an influential member of parliament who belongs to the same party as the two ministers. It will be a public loss of face for him and he will fight tooth and nail, using all his political clout to scuttle such a move.

Manmohan Singh created a name for himself during the liberalisation process and during the nuclear deal. The fate of another important chapter in the history of modern India is now in his hands. Will he show the same conviction and do the right thing for the country or buckle under political considerations?

The entire country wants to know.

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What the Indian media isn’t telling you about the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games

We can't just count on Vijender every time. We need more like him

First the good news.

Vijender Kumar became the first Indian to win a medal at the World Championships, further consolidating his position as one of the best in his weight category. This will ensure that continues to maintain an impressive world ranking which in turn assures him of a relatively easier draw in the major World events including the 2012 Olympics. This is important because we don’t want our best medal bet to be running into a world champion in the early rounds.

The other impressive performer was Jai Bhagwan Singh who made the quarters. He is coming along nicely and could be another medal contender in London.

Now the bad news

Five others, including Akhil Kumar and Jitender Kumar disappointed hugely, losing comprehensively in the first round itself. The two were quarter-finalists in the last Olympics and won bronze medals at the World Cup. I just hope this is a temporary blip and not the beginning of their decline.

The energy of Akhil Kumar lifts the entire squad and we cannot afford to see him go downhill right now. He has decided to move back to his original weight category and hopefully that will be the panacea to this sudden malaise.

Future Outlook for Indian Boxing

At the Olympics three of the five Indians made the quarters or better. The same number made the last eight stage in Milan but the flurry of first round defeats was a setback.

Also, at the last World Championships, India had finished 21st with the eight boxers winning a total of nine bouts. This time round, the nine Indians won eight bouts and the team finished 24th. Considering, that Vijender himself won three of those, the overall effort was a little disappointing.

We must celebrate Vijender’s feat but at the same time we need to take stock of the overall effort and make plans for the future. Indian boxing has taken a huge leap forward but we shouldn’t get too carried away with that. We need to show more ambition and aim for more boxers winning more medals at top level world meets.

And by more, I don’t mean one more medal. The ambition should be to win three to four medals with atleast one being gold. Our boxers have great potential and we can surely make this happen.

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