Decent at London, Extraordinary at Rio?

There couldn’t have been a better ending to what had been technically unsound and faulty Olympics 2012 for the Indians. Sushil kumar bagged Silver on the final day and won millions of hearts across the globe. The Queen’s jump from the helicopter gave us hope of a better Olympics than Beijing but that wasn’t the case. Controversial decisions in Boxing, fa(en)cing clock errors, throwing of games and disqualification in Badminton Arena were topics to write on. Any event can’t be perfect, one can understand, but yet it has to be too good in other aspects so that one easily forgets the loose points. But that wasn’t the case.

These have been a great Olympics for any Indian fan. They not only just doubled their medal count as compared to 2008 edition of games, but also showed a great character to fight and determination to win. Though in rankings they slipped few rungs from Beijing due to the absence of a gold medal, but the way the Indians performed overall was fascinating to watch. Not only was the enthusiasm on a higher note in the Indian contingent, but the fan following also grew for every sport from Archery to Wrestling. Except hockey, we propelled and geared up to next level in every department of the games. Hockey is the only worrying factor for India. Expecting a medal from hockey was too much but a 5^th to 8^th finish would have done justice to the so-called national game. Every viewer felt that hockey played by Indians was pathetic and miserable and needs to improve. Apart from hockey, everything else was good. We not only kept our medals in 2 out of 3 events from Beijing but also won in each of the sports we won in 2008. In Boxing, Wrestling and Shooting we retained and added Badminton to that list. Forgetting those 6 medals, other heart winning performances were by shooter Joydeep who just missed podium finish by 0.9 points, boxer Vijender Singh and Devendro who were a bout away from ensuring a medal, athlete Krishna poonia who not only qualified for finals but was at 7^th spot at the end, shuttler Ashwinni and Jwala missing quarter final spot, shuttler P.Kashyap who played his heart out against the top seed in quarters but lost the match eventually and finally, not so noticed Irfan, who finished 10^th in 20 Km walk and created a national record.

Indians were also involved in lot of controversies, especially in the boxing arena. Sumit Sangwan was robbed in his first match, while Manoj Kumar lost what he already won. Remaining boxers too were complaining about the points system in boxing. Even as a viewer , one feels the need to have a check on the points system and its transparency. Though India had no participation in fencing, but clock errors were quite common there with the top-seeded South Korean girl being the victim.

Counting on the upsets or disappointments, inexperienced Archer and world no.1 Deepika kumari failed to make even to the top 32 cut while massively experienced shooter R. Sodhi couldn’t hold on to his nerves in the third round of qualification round and bowed out without a medal again. Moreover, Abhinav Bindra too failed to qualify for the finals yet we got medal in same event via Gagan Narang.

There’s a lot to take as lessons and achievements from London to Rio. Though we performed well but that’s not what we expect from a country of over 1 billion population. Its really has been lack of knowledge about sports among residents here and law-makers there which has lead to such a mediocre show in Olympics in comparison with USA, China, Great Britain, Russian Federation and many others. 6 medals account a lot for us but nothing in front of such nations. For a start, 6 is good but we need to keep up the pace and should not only reach double digits in medal count but also change these into Gold at Rio. Go for Gold India.