India And Sports

With the Beijing Olympics coming to a close we cant help but feel a little bit of pride and disappointment. It could give India a lot of pride in achieving the country's first individual gold and also two bronze which is India's highest medal tally in all Olympics. True sportsman would see the real and bigger picture of how low the standard of Indian sport really is. People in India adore cricket and treat the players like Gods and shun all other sports where people are actually making a mark in their respective fields. Jeev Milkha Singh in golf, Boxers did well and got a bronze, a weightlifter got India bronze as well. They are not recognized enough for their achievements and supported financially and with facilities. Indian hockey used to be the pride of the nation winning gold medals at the olympics and dominating the game for years. Now, come 2008 and we have a record, first time we fail to qualify for the olympics in both the men and women. I thought India was going up the ladder and growing. Cricket in India like I said is huge but take a closer look, what have they achieved over the last two decades. One world T20 championship which is more of entertainment rather than a show of true cricketing skills is all we have to show for it. Indian sport is suffering because of all the politics and money involved behind the scenes. We have ministers in charge of various sports federations who know nothing about the game. They have no time to look into facilities and the money is usually put into politics rather than the betterment of the game. Sports and politics should be separated. The problem with India is that they have no idea when to throw in the towel and also spotting the right person for the job. India's biggest disappointment this olympics were the shooters apart of course from Abhinav Bindra's gold. The excuse the shooters were giving after failing to even qualify for the finals was astounding. Many blamed the wind for their bad misses. At this level, there are no excuses and also there are 50 other shooters all around who seem to have no problem at all. This is all because of the facilities and experience that India does not provide to its athletes. Out of a populations of over a billion we have just three medals. Forget the medal tally we cant even represent the country in more sports and event because they cant reach the mark. We saw the womens 200m and 4*400m relay and it was so embarrassing to see the Indians go down without a fight. We need to really sit and focus and look at the management behind the sports federations and also see that the funds are being used in the right way.