Lost Ace

Sports and national interest seems to be of very low priority in a country that has earned only one Individual Gold Medal in its history at Olympics. For over 60 years now, we have blamed every possible aspect of sports for our failure to mark a presence in international stage, be it economics, society, media, bureaucracy, corruption, politics, infrastructures, educational system, upbringing, culture, our neighbors and if not less even starts and planets. We always believed that everything and everyone under the SUN are against our sports champions and we have too many struggles when compared to other countries.

We always looked at Nordic nations, China, USA, Australia and said that they are lucky to have all that they need to be champion, and if we had those blessings we too would have made it big in international stage. But what we don’t see is Africa and Latin Americas where probably things are even worse than that in India but they still get more medals and perform better than us.

Last few days in Indian tennis has been heartbreaking. For a sport that rouse from dust to sky, received everything thing that other sports just dream of, including media attention, and love of people, it was great shameful to see its stalwarts fighting like street dogs in front of the nation, and in international media. I grew up watching Leander Paes, and for me his Sachin Tendulkar of Indian Tennis. Bhupti, Sania and Rohan came in very late but they continued the legacy of Leander, Ramanathan Krishnan and Amritraj. They became face of Indian Tennis and dream of billion. They carried aspiration of millions on their shoulders and made tri-color proud by performance.

But somehow, the nation and sport seems to have lost importance and individual ego, preferences and priorities have become of higher importance. Neither Sachin (Cricket legend), nor Abhinav bindra (shooting gold medalist at Olympics) or Viwanathan Anand (world chess champion) ever behaved in this manner. They are sport gem, not just on pitch but also off-filed. For the first time in history of sports in India, sports person are reason for bring down the glory and setting up ugly culture. In this unprecedented event wherein players have come out in open and displayed an ugly character, I hope AITA takes stringent action and ensure this was first and last of its kind.

London 2012 Olympic Games & Bhopal

London 2012 Olympics games is already making headlines for all wrong reasons, be at a wooping $100 ticket for infants / kids or its sponsorship agreement with Dow Chemicals. Not all is well with this mega event which is suppose to be one of its kind under the Sun.

All what I believe now is the financial crunch which is forcing the organizing body to get to such low level unkind decisions. Olympics are for masses and not for making huge profits. After all its all about sports, sportsmanship, togetherness and happiness. Heavy ticket prices will keep lovers of sports away from the event and without fans sports person cannot be at their best.

Agreement with dow chemicals is a shameful act. Company responsible for thousands of death and counting and refusing to do its duty of cleaning up its ugly acts should not have been associated with this Olympics. Dow chemicals is a shame on human race and people who let them go lose and people who encourage them in business are equally responsible for negligence of their responsibilities. Dow and London Olympics together are ignoring too many facts around to be respected. All for sure, if this kumb of sports goes with Dow, the shine of five rings take knock.

Hope cries of infant from Bhopal reaches burst deaf ears of Olympic association and Dow is show the door to Bhopal to clear its pending duties.

Humiliating the Heroes

In 1956 summer Olympics which were hosted by Australia, Indian football team qualified for the semi-finals along with Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and USSR (eventual winners). India defeated Australia in the quaterfinals booked the spot for semis. They were one win away from earning a medal when they lost the bronze medal match against Bulgaria 3-0. This probably is the best performance by Indian football team till date. Neville D'Souza scored a hatrick against Australia in quaterfinals to become the first Asian footballer to score a hat trick in Olympics, he was also the top scorer of the tournament.

Almost 75 years now, very few remember this great achievement by an Indian football team. And this year All Indian Football Federation (AIFF) decided to go a step further (rather backward). They decided to humiliate the forgotten heroes by paying them petite amount of Rs. 25,000/- (approx 500 USD). And when the heroes tried reaching the AIFF offices / secrateries etc no one bothered to take the call.

Tired of this ghastly attitude, the Melbourne squad skipper Samar Banerjee and other 8 surviving members decided to return the chequest to AIFF. You can read the full story on following link:
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/humiliated-indian-soccer-heroes-return-cheques/98599-5.html

Well. What a day it was for sports in India. Somdev Burman wins a match against world number 15 and Haryana state imposes additional tax on Golf (they consider it as entertainment and not sport). God bless old aged bureaucrat and thankless politicians.