OUR COUNTRY AT THE OLYMPICS
Our country, even since under the colonial rule,
has been almost continuously participating in the World Olympics, since 1920 in
the team events; even in the very Second Olympics at Paris in 1900, Norman
Gilbert Pritchard (1877-1929), Indian-born athlete of British parentage from
Calcutta, our lone contestant, won two silver medals. Real triumph for our
country was secured by our super-talented Hockey team, especially by the
legendary [Maj.] Dhyan Chand. During 1928-1956 our Hockey team won 6 successive
gold medals. The Berlin Olympics in 1936 is a memorable landmark, when the Führer himself would get enchanted by our Hockey Wizard
Dhyan Chand and offer him a top post in the German Army if he consented to play
for Germany, which the patriotic player so politely declined. But this greatest
field hockey player of all time has not been given the topmost national award though
a much junior/younger talenter in another game, which is not even an Olympic
event, was adorned with Bharat Ratna due to patently political reasons. In all
the Olympics we participated so far, we could only secure 9 Gold Medals with
the last in 2008 with Abhinav Bhindra winning it in air rifle shooting. It is
regrettable that in Athletics/Gymnastics we rarely won any medals, and it is to
the credit of our Telugu girl Karanam Malleswari that we could get a bronze
medal in weightlifting in 2000 Olympics, making her the first Indian woman to
win an Olympic medal. Now we are all proud of another Telugu girl P.V. Sindhu bagging
the Rio Olympic Silver in Badminton. Our total
tally is just 9G+7S+12B = 28 medals in all these Olympics. Compare this to the tally
of 100 medals of our neighbor China in the Beijing Olympics 2008 alone, where
they also stood as World No. 1. In contrast to us, China has been participating
in both Summer and Winter Olympics since the 1980 Winter and 1984 Summer
Olympics only, but already its total tally in Summer Olympics is a whooping 201G+146S+126B
= 473 up to 2012 – a spectacular achievement with which we have to compare our
dismal performances, and try to catch up even to some 10% extent. Truly, in our
country where there are no playgrounds in most of the schools, even that would
be an insuperable task but what should we do is to provide the basic
infrastructure for and fulfill the basic needs of the people, especially the
youths, instead of declaring whimsical rewards at public cost for the stray
winners; of course, they deserve all encouragement no doubt but not such political
pampering. And such winners too, receiving the astronomical gift amounts now,
may hopefully try to emulate Usain Bolt of Jamaica, who selflessly donated several
million dollars from his earnings to his alma
mater to promote the cause and conditions of sports in his country. §§§
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