MouthShut.com Would Like to Send You Push Notifications. Notification may includes alerts, activities & updates.

OTP Verification

Enter 4-digit code
For Business
MouthShut Logo
15 Tips
×

Upload your product photo

Supported file formats : jpg, png, and jpeg

Address



Contact Number

Cancel

I feel this review is:

Fake
Genuine

To justify genuineness of your review kindly attach purchase proof
No File Selected

Will I ever see...........
Jun 14, 2006 03:58 PM 4962 Views
(Updated Jun 14, 2006 04:18 PM)

An Indian athlete will breach the 100 meter mark in say under 9 seconds, a teenage girl from  India will achieve a perfect ten in the olympic gymnastics, a thorpedo(read Ian Thorpe) will roam around in Indian waters n., oh my wishlist is endless.


India is one of the most underachieving and mediocre sporting nations. With a population of over a billion(ok, 300 million of them are malnourished, still) we are happy and content with just a single olympic medal .Some would say that we have been improving a lot in Asiads and the common wealth games .But quite simply that doesn't mean much. I mean to say the disciplines where we excel in these games most of the times lack world class competitors e.g Athletics and tennis in asiads, shooting and weightlifting in the commonwealth.


Achievements in sports on the world stage go a long way in boosting the country's image(what is the first thought that comes to the mind when we hear BRAZIL, great soccer playing nation isn't it?), but we Indians have never ever thought of it that way .We have never taken Sports seriously. To me this is the biggest reason of our disastrous performances over the decades.


Sports is a big industry world wide with new innovations, both in the coaching techniques and the athletes' gears, coming up on a fairly regular basis. People across the globe work hard day in day out to achieve excellence in sport. And for that to happen they should be provided with excellent infrastructure and proper facilities .What do we have in India? In the name of infrastructure we have some stone-age stadia which are hopelessly maintained and lousy politicians, who just want to feel important, running sports boards. Not at all a conducive atmosphere for breeding of champions.


People in India always complain that cricket gathers all the attention and hence the growth of other sports retards .I think that is a real lame excuse that sports administrators retort to bashing the media. Rather than correcting their own follies they have chosen this easy way out. I don't have any problems with cricket gathering most of the media attention .Cricket is brilliantly managed and marketed here and they do decently well on the world stage. Rather than complaining about it the other sports boards should take a cue from the BCCI.


So should we conclude that this hapless situation should never improve? Nah, It's never too late to start. And for inspiration we have to look at China .In a matter of a decade or so they have almost miraculously exulted themselves to the top of the sporting strata in the world .So what are the steps to be taken




  1. First and foremost we have to take care of our existing sporting fraternity. Pay them well, provide them with adequate facilities and performance related incentives.




  2. I hate to say this but there is a tremendous push needed from the government in terms of money and collective will to improve the condition of the existing facilities and bring them up to the world standards .Build new ones if needed. India is the host for the 2010 commonwealth games n that should be the goal for this activity.






3.Get those goddamn politicians out of the board .Get qualified people to run them .By that I mean people who have a passion towards the sport and have the relevant know-how e.g ex-players.


4.Improve the industry interface so that once the initial push starts producing results we can reap the most of it in terms of support from the industry. People should remember that industry sponsors only those people who are sellable. Apart from that whatever they do is just charity.




  1. Media should also play it's part by giving more space to the upcoming stars rather than wasting the whole space on some cricketer's injury or love life.




  2. Last but not the least a sporting culture has to be cultivated which has to be done by everyone. Kids should be made to understand that playing is as important as studying. Adequate encouragement at that nascent level will go a long way in nurturing champions.






If all these come true then maybe one day names like Rathore, Sania, Karthikeyan, Saina, Gopichand won't be counted as exceptions but rather as part of the general norm. And Maybe hopefully I will see some of my dreams come true.


Do let me know your thoughts on this.


Upload Photo

Upload Photos


Upload photo files with .jpg, .png and .gif extensions. Image size per photo cannot exceed 10 MB


Comment on this review

Read All Reviews

X