A Common Fan’s Sports Diary

India do not go to the Asian Games

The International Olympic Committee takes note that the country with the biggest cricket market doesn’t care for such sporting events.

They will realize that there is no guarantee that India will send a team to the Olympics if the sport does become a part of the Olympic program.

Will considerably weaken cricket’s chances of joining the Olympic movement.

If India had gone to the Asian Games

Good TV ratings and attendance figures ( quite possible with India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka participating) would have given cricket’s Olympic chances a boost.

The fringe players get a chance to play an international tournament and that is never a bad thing.

An opportunity to win an Asian Games gold. We usually win only 4-5 of those at every event. So, another one would have meant a lot.

An opportunity for an Olympic medal if cricket was included in the Olympic program. And that would have been a huge deal. The likes of Sachin Tendulkar would’ve willingly agreed to play.

All expenses paid trip for Ratnakar Shetty and other BCCI mandarins for the Asian Games and possibly for the Olympics as well.

A chance to complete cricket’s domination of Indian sports. After all, the Asian Games and the Olympics were the only times when a majority of Indian sports fans paid attention to other sports.

The likes of Shashank Manohar and team would get to work with Suresh Kalmadi. They could share best practises and other trade secrets.

There are a few more but I guess the point has already been made.

Just when everyone else is trying to do whatever it takes to get cricket included in the Olympic program, the BCCI have decided to throw a spanner in the works.

The BCCI does not believe in the Olympic movement but they do seem to have borrowed from the Olympic Motto.

Their motto is Atius, Altius Altius.

Just when you think the BCCI can’t get any worse, they come back to dazzle you with a higher level of ineptness which in turn makes your anger levels go higher.

P.S – The BCCI could damage cricket’s chances further. They should bar any cricketer who plays in the Asian Games, Commonwealth Games or any such event from playing in the IPL. After all, these events like the ICL haven’t been sanctioned by the BCCI.

The Padma Awards are given by the Government of India generally to Indian citizens to recognize their exceptional and distinguished contribution in various spheres of activity including the Arts, Education, Industry, Literature, Science, Sports, Social Service and public life. There are 4 of them – the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan, the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Shri in decreasing order of significance.

In 2009, two persons whose efforts were not found to be either exceptional or distinguished were 2008 Olympic bronze medal winners – Sushil Kumar and Vijender Kumar. However, Olympic gold medallist, Abhinav Bindra has been awarded with the third highest civilian award, the Padma Bhushan.

Previously, 2004 Olympic Silver medallist Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore was conferred with the Padma Shri – the very next year in 2005. On the other hand 1994 Bronze medallist Leander Paes had to wait for 5 years to get his due. By then he had also won numerous grand slam titles and led India to some memorable Davis Cup triumphs – my guess is that the award was more a consequence of these than the Olympic effort. Another Olympic bronze medallist Karnam Malleswari was awarded the Padma Shri in 1999, much before her Olympic achievement in 2000. The only other individual bronze-medallist in the Olympics, Kashaba Jadhav, never received any of the Padma Awards.

It is very clear now that ‘just winning an Olympic bronze medal’ isn’t good enough to be considered Padma Award worthy. After all, we have had 5 of those in just 25 Olympic Games.

Somebody please tell this to Vijender and Sushil who are feeling hurt and angry after being ignored for the awards.

The government is not unreasonable. They have recognized all the exceptional sporting efforts of 2008 – like in the case of spin bowler spinner Harbhajan Singh. He has been rightly recognized for his ‘exceptional and distinguished’ effort of slapping a fellow Indian cricketer in front of the whole world.

Poll – What was the most significant sporting moment for India in 2008?

Results – India winning three medals at the Beijing Olympics – 45%
Vishwanathan Anand winning the World Chess title in the classical format -31%
The super success of the IPL – 10%
India’s cricket team winning the one -day tri-series in Australia – 7%
India’s cricket team beating Australia 2-0 in the test series at home -3%
India’s football team winning the AFC Challenge Cup -3%,

In an obvious testimony to the fact that the few people who do visit this website take more than a passing interest in different sports other than cricket, the voters of the latest Commonfan Poll have decided, that no cricketing moment was good enough to the most important one in what has a been a great year for Indian sports. And that in spite of the fact there were three major achievements for cricket in 2008. So did the presence of 3 nominations divide the cricket vote, ensuring that some other sport slipped through? not quite. Even the combined cricket vote couldn’t have been enough. And there are two reasons for that.

One is that the cricket moments weren’t just good enough- even by the sports’ own standards. We did win the tri-series for the first time in Australia but is that even in the top five of India’s greatest one-day performances. Is it bigger than the two appearances in the World Cup finals or the win in the World Championship of Cricket in 1985? Our voters don’t think so.

We beat Australia in t

he home test series but does that even qualify as one of our greatest wins against Australia, forget it being in the all time test victory list. This Australian side wasn’t one of their better ones and hence the win didn’t taste as good as say the comeback victory in 2001 or the triumph in Adelaide in 2003

Coming to the IPL, it did make a huge impression in 2008. But this wasn’t about the Twenty-20 format of the game, which was already quite popular. Rather it was about the first full blown and ICC endorsed International cricket League. As things stand today the league form of the game is still a poor cousin of international cricket. Some years from today, if this format really explodes, and the ICC has to find a window in the IPL calendar to accommodate international matches, like they have to do in football, than yes – we will definitely look back on 2008 as a far more significant moment in the history of cricket and Indian sport. Till that happens, cricket will play second or rather third fiddle to what were the most significant moments for Indian sport in 2008.

Now we come to the second reason – India’s performance at the Olympics and Vishwanathan Anand’s win against Vladimir Kramnik are right up there because they are watershed events – something which the cricket moments were not.

Anand’s win is a monumental landmark in the annals of Chess. He became only the second non-Russian to win it in the classical format after Bobby Fischer. But Fischer’s win is remembered more because an American beat the Russians at their own game at the height of the cold war hostilities. In purely chess terms, Anand beat a far tougher opponent in Kramnik, the only man to beat Garry Kasparov in the classical format. And we all know that Kasparov is the greatest chess player of all time. Fischer beat Boris Spassky who is definitely not remembered as one of the great champions and refused to play Anatoly Karpov for reasons unknown. The win also secured Anand’s legacy. He is now a complete champion and ready to take his place alongside the celebrated masters of the sport.

And now for the most significant moment – India’s feat at the Olympics -Is there even a debate about its position as number one. Enough has been written and said about its significance and long lasting impact and I will not go into repeating it. I will just say that for the first time in my living memory, we Indians were enjoying the closing ceremony of the Olympics and feeling a part of the celebrations. And that, as the voters have already decided, was significant enough.

Considering that we had the Olympics in 2008, it is natural that the performance in the Olympics will largely determine how well a particular sport fared in the year gone by. But that will not be the entire story. A lot of non-Olympic events will also vouch for the current state of affairs and as well as how the future will be.

We will rate every sport on a scale from -3 to 3. A positive score will indicate a step forward and a negative one will point to a regression. The absolute value will be a measure of the quantum.

So here we go sport by sport in alphabetical order

Archery

Positives
Indian men won gold medal in the men’s recurve team event in the World Cup held in Antalya, Turkey.

Negatives
The disappointment of the Olympics. A Lot was expected of the women’s team and of Dola Banerjee – the winner of the World Cup in 2007. But nobody delivered on the promise. We didn’t even contend for a medal. Another story of under achievement

Verdict
Archery has tantalized us with its medal winning potential for too long now. Time and again it promises a lot and then leaves Indian fans heartbroken. The sport has a decent talent identification program and generally the archers are provided with world class coaching and infrastructure and given sufficient international exposure. If only we could do something about their mental strength and nerves at the big events

Score
0

Athletics

Positives
The Indians topped the medals tally in the Asian Indoor Athletics Championships in Doha in February ahead of China and did well in the three Asian Grand Prix events in June.
The federation and the govt improved its act – there was a training-cum-competition trip of England before the Olympics and a few athletes were sent to train abroad.

Negatives
A hugely disappointing Olympics where almost instead of going swifter, higher and stronger our athletes ended up being slower, lower and weaker. The selection criterion remains a joke with the authorities’ intent on inflating the size of the squad. The Olympics also signalled the end for our lone world class athlete – Anju Bobby George.
Doping and age violations became even more rampant at junior and sub-junior levels.

Verdict
We are totally stuck in a time warp – happy to win medals at inconsequential events and send the largest contingent amongst the various sports to the Olympics. The consistency of our underperformance at the Olympics is extremely depressing. There isn’t a single athlete coming through the ranks who we can get excited about. This sport needs a major over haul.

Score
-1

Badminton

Positives
The super success of Saina Nehwal who is still a teenager. She missed an Olympic medal by a whisker and has improved by leaps and bounds since then.
Prakash Padukone and Pullela Gopichand form a two man support system for all aspiring badminton players
India has 4 players in the top 50 on the men’s side including Chetan Anand at 15.

Negatives
The cancellation of national level tournaments, the passport fiascos and the haphazard arrangement of training camps.

Verdict
We have the talent and we are making it count to some extent. But we could really do with more exposure and better support systems.

Score
1.5

Boxing

Positives
An Olympic medal and two near misses
4 medals at the AIBA boxing World Cup
World Championship Gold medals for Mary Kom (women) and Thakchom Singh (junior men)
A much better support system and hopefully things are getting even better – thanks to Bhiwani and the Mittal Trust

Negatives
In spite of all the glory and the surge in popularity of the boxers’ post the Olympics, things are back to normal – there was no reception for the World cup squad which came home with 4 medals

Verdict
The talent was always there. Now we have started to believe in ourselves. The depth is also very good. The next Olympics could be even better

Score
2

Hockey

Positives
KPS Gill was finally sacked
The emergence of a talented drag flicker in Diwakar Ram
A movie called Chak De which made some much needed attention to the sport

Negatives
We missed the Olympics
We still have an ad-hoc committee and a caretaker coach

Verdict
We have reached a nadir. And we have stayed there. Full stop.

Score
-3

Shooting

Positives
Abhinav Bindra wins an Olympic gold
Gagan Narang breaks two world records
Ronjon Sodhi wins the World Cup and equals a world record

Negatives
Other then Bindra and Narang all the other shooters stunk at the Olympics
The acute shortage of equipment, practise pellets, infrastructure and support systems continues

Verdict
The talent has always been there but in spite of an Olympic gold life has not changed for the shooters. Is Bindra merely an exception or do we have capability to produce more champions – the jury is still out on this

Score
1

Tennis

Positives
The emergence of Somdev Dev Varman. Barely six months after turning professional he is already India’s highest ranked player at world number 204.
Leander Paes’ becoming a vice president of Bengal Tennis. We shouldn’t read too much into this but it at least creates hope.
The emergence of Yuki Bhambhri. Another one who gives us hope for the future

Negatives
The open infighting in the Davis Cup team
The dismal year for Sania Mirza. Also disappointing years for the other women’s players
Failure to win a medal at the Olympics. It’s not the failure which stinks – it’s the fact that Paes and Bhupathi made every effort to not be well prepared.
Failure to make the World group in the Davis Cup once again
The AITA at its worst. They announced the Indian Tennis League – which was modelled on the IPL but then totally forgot about it. They also picked up a fight with the guys running Apollo’s Mission Grand Slam 2018 program

Verdict
Tennis is extremely popular in the country – there are lots of enthusiastic kids playing it, parents are usually encouraging and there is no shortage of fans willing to cheer and corporates willing to fund the game. But hardly any good players are coming through. We have a big problem with our system and nobody seems to be doing anything about it.

Score
0

Weightlifting

Positives
Absolutely nothing.

Negatives
Once a medal generating sport, women’s weightlifting slipped a little more in 2008, with our weightlifters falling a little further off the international pace.
The doping controversies
The selection controversies

Verdict
We are going from bad to worse and to add to it are also doing it disgracefully and with shame

Score
-1.5

Wrestling

Positives
The bronze medal won by Sushil Kumar at the Olympics.
A decent performance at the Commonwealth Youth Games
The emergence of Indian stars in professional wrestling like the WWE – the likes of the Great Khali and Sanjoy Dutt. At least it motivates young kids to take up the sport.
As compared to the previous Olympics, Indian wrestlers were trianed by better foreign coaches and were given more international exposure.

Negatives
We are not making the Olympic success count. Absolutely nothing has been done to take advantage of the increased interest in the sport

Verdict
The sport is extremely popular in certain pockets of the country and there is no shortage of talent. In fact the sport continues to prosper, in spite of govt and corporate apathy, because of its huge popularity in these regions. And now Sushil Kumar has shown all the budding wrestlers that we can be true world beaters. This is a great time to harness this surging potential and make Olympic medals a regular feature. Sadly the govt hasn’t awakened to this possibility. And for some reason the corporates also stay away. Why isn’t Sushil Kumar endorsing energy drinks and breakfast cereal?

Score
1

This article was originally published on www.IndiaAtLondon.com

This is an appeal to all Indian sports fans who really care about India’s performance at the Olympics.

Its time we started doing something about it. Its time we started paying regular attention to the Olympic sports, and not just once every four years – when the Olympics are on.

www.IndiaAtLondon.com is an effort in that direction. And I am proud to be part of it. This is what this website intends to do

We need more ‘true sports fans’ to really make an impact. If you think you are one then come and join us – lets make something happen together.

Let’s start preparing for glory at London 2012

Go India go