London Olympics is over and for India it was the best Olympics since the time the country started participating in the mega event. India won six medals, two silver and four bronze and doubled the tally from what the country won at Beijing. Six medals do not look as an accomplishment when one compare India with some of the other countries, but for a country which is one sports dominated and obsessed with cricket, it is seems to an achievement.
Any athlete in the world will agree that participating in the Olympics is an honor in itself and to win a medal is the greatest and the most difficult thing to do. In the competition where more than 200 countries participate, the stakes obviously will be high. The level of competition is unmatchable and the amount of hard work put in by athletes is unbelievable.
When the 81-member Indian contingent went to London, people said that this was the best Indian team ever to have participated in the Games. The sports ‘pundits’ predicted that even on a bad day, India will return with five medals and the Indian athletes bettered the expectations. The whole nation is celebrating and the reception that the medal winners got when they landed in India was heart-warming. Indians have done it for cricketers so many times, but to welcome the Olympic medallist in this fashion was lovely to watch.
Now the extravaganza has begun. Every corporate house and government bodies want to felicitate our champions, people want to write about them because there are people who want to read about them. But the question that arises here is till how long will their success be celebrated? What will happen when the corporate houses and the sports lover are done celebrating their achievements?
Sooner or later the focus will once again shift to the mother of all sports in India, cricket. India will play New Zealand in this month and it sure to get the attention of everyone. Come this September, when India will participate in the T20 World Cup and it is almost certain that our Olympic champions will be on their own. This is the sad part in our country; everything takes a backseat when our cricketers are on the field. It is not the fault of our cricketers but the fault of the sports lovers and the media.
The channels and the newspapers can’t get enough of the Olympians nowadays, but they will forget all about them once the cricket season is in full flow. The next Olympics is in 2016, in between there will be four editions of Indian Premier League which is India has unparrelled viewership.
It is true that the big corporate houses are coming in support of other sports, but apart from one or two, most of the houses come when the team is about to leave for the Olympics or they are there to celebrate. What other sport need in India is the help at the grass-root level. To support a well established player is not what is going to make much difference, but to groom a youngster right from the beginning is the change that India needs.
If India has to climb up the medal tally, than the country has to look beyond cricket. For a developing country like India we need more Olympic medals as that is one of the ways to get noticed in the big wide world and for that we need to support our athletes, not just six months before the event, but for the complete tenure.
By Indian Sports News Network
