Indian Sports- What We Need To Do?

The Beijing Olympics is coming to an end, China is sitting on top with the most gold medals, followed by USA. India has completed its participation and has finished with a haul of 3 medals: One Gold(10M Rifle event: Abhnav Bindra), and two bronze medals in boxing(Vijender Kumar) and Wrestling(Sushil Kumar).

India had a slightly better olympics this time around, it got a gold and two bronze medals; the best haul during these 108 years of participation.
It was amusing to see every news channel go gaga over Abhinav, Sushil, and Vijender.
What was even more amusing is the rewards, that are being offered to the athletes. by the Central and State Goverments.

My question is: Why can't the goverment allot specific funds for Sports federation and properly tap talent in the first place? When we can award Abhinav 20 crores now, why not spend 10 crores to setup proper infrastructure. Haven't we been lethargic? How fair is it for us to sit back and just say "OH, our INDIAN ATHLETES CAN't EVEN ONE MEDAL THIS TIME". Have we ever wondered what is the reason?

Ok, let me explain, Abhinav got his gold medal, NOT BECAUSE of our infrastructure, but because of his rich parents, who have him world class facilities. To speak frankly, the Infrastructure at India for shooters is way too pathetic that we do not have even proper ammunition to practice, and also no latest equipments.

Let us look at Sushil, he was staying at a room with 20 others enthusiastic wrestlers and inspite of not even being provided even the basic infrastructure, he has won us a bronze medal. Even Vijender, a boxer, had to work part-time to sponsor his boxing classes. Inspite of these obstacles, Vijender and Sushil have won us Bronze, we should be really proud of them, but at the same time, ashamed of our INDIAN OLYMPIC FEDERATION, which has done a pathetic job, and is still doing a very pathetic job now.

For India to shine in Olympics, we must first plan well.
The Plan should include, finding Sports where we can Shine well, setting up DEDICATED Sports Federations and maintaining them with World Class Infrastructure and Coaching.
Nominate genuinely interested sports persons to take care of these federations, MR KALMADI, PLEASE LISTEN???
There should be no politicians involved, the IOA must seek help of corporates to fund them as the task of funding multiple Sports Federations is too much for the IOA.
Corporates like Infosys and WIPRO can be approached.

The other sports such as Swimming, Marathons, Sprinting, Gymnastics, Rowing, Football, Hockey, should be encouraged and given media exposure.

If we are really serious about becoming a sports superpower, we must take strong strides forward, there is no use in the WAIT AND WATCH approach, Sports is not a joke, all people can play any kind of sport, but only a few will excel, our job is to find those few and nurture them.

My request to the Sports Minister of India and the IOA: Please do take steps to improve our infrastructure. And for Heaven's sake, please stop appointing non-sports people as the head of Federations, they will only do a pathetic job, please be serious atleast now.

If I am not wrong, we should concerntrate more on these sports:

1) Hockey: This is our National Sport????? Unfortunately, our people and media have conveniently forgotten this sport,thanks to people like Mr GILL and our IOA president. If our hockey players are encourage properly, they will strike GOLD This is a promise.
2) Tennis and Badminton
3)Wrestling
4)Boxing
5)SHooting(10M,50M,DOuble-Trap)
6)Weight Lifting
7) Marathon and Sprinting: IN India, some people in Villages walk as far as 8 Km to reach the school, I am very surprised that we are not able to produce even a single Marathon Athlete till now.
8) Cycling: COmmon people, even a guy like me can cycle 40-50 kms continuosly at the speed of 20-23 kms per hour, i am sure that in this 1Billion people, we definitely have 200+ world class cyclists.
9) Swimming: This is one sport, where we definitely need to concentrate on, purely because there are nearly 10 golds for this event at the Olympics
10)Rowing: Well, people will be surprised when i said "Rowing", I strongly believe that we have good potential to do well in this sport. Our Rower, Bajranglal went till the Quarter finals in his Maiden Olympics. We have been producing budding talents like Rahul Baliga. So, if things go well, we may strike gold.


People must be made aware that there are indeed other games which provide them the same level of entertainment as Cricket. The Goverment should ensure that each promising athlete is provided the required facilities. If required, the goverment should create jobs specificially for those, who excel in Sports. Although, there are sports federations in India, they are functioning with poor facilities or lack of funds. To change this trend, we must allot funds for certain sports, find out great talent, provide them world-class facilties and be patient till the results come.
Afterll, it takes aleast 6 months to build a house, we will require atleast 4 years to produce world-class athletes.
And of course, our media should also spend some time on other sports, afterall we would be tired of seeing the faces of Yuvarj, Dhoni and Sachin by now :-) Am i right people?

Afterall, when we can watch an idiotic cricket team performing inconsistently time and again, only to falter at the best occasion, we can atleast use our remote to see how our people are doing at other sports, it will atleast make them happy and of course, when they feel that they are being watched, they will perform well :-) Isn't it?
I sincerely hope that atleast by 2012, we will be producing athletes, who conquer the world in their respective sports. Hope this 2008 Beijing Olympics proves to be the ultimate watershed, if it is not, then god save our Athletes.