INDIANS AT OLYMPICS
Despite having a rich historical tradition of both Hockey and Cricket, Indians fail to perform in Olympics events. Having world’s second largest population (almost 1/6th of the global population) and largest democracy, Indians are unable to make an impression at world level. But the question arises, why do we lack behind in the race of Olympics glory? There are many reasons which illustrate our nation’s bad performance but in order to ameliorate our world’s position in such an event we not only have to uplift and motivation our children but also the government needs to take place actions and concentrate on struggling athletes by providing them support in all possible directions.
Why does Indian at Olympics won so few medals?
To answer this question, let’s first look at some of the stats that demonstrate India’s performance. India has won just 0.21% of the 15400 medals awarded in the last 116 years. Moreover, if you rank countries by the total number of medals they have ever won, India ranks 55th in the world, even though India has participated in twice as many Olympics games as either country. It might be disappointed for us that developing countries as well as some underdeveloped countries have managed to do quite well in achieving medals in this event. China, for instances, which everyone knows done exceptionally well in 2008 Beijing games. Though China also has a skyrocketing population, which is very much close to India, then why can’t we achieve this?
Now, let us examine some of the factors which contribute to our bad performance and could be taken under consideration to obtain best result.
1) Corruption: We as a nation are corrupt to the core, and that’s what refuses to recognize dedicated and talented sport person from smaller cities. In 2008, IPL was launched with the concept of giving young cricketer a much-needed platform and to popularize the game in various countries. But the league has also been about numerous controversies. Every season a new controversy crops up to bring disrepute to the players and to the game itself. There are reports of match-fixing, doping allegation and rave party scandals.
2) Political overtones: There is a huge influence of politics in sports too, due to which not everyone gets an opportunity to showcase their talent. Politicians plan well not to promote good talent, as they want to fill your pocket. Also, sports management has merely become another way of filling pocket in quick time. The facilities provided by the government are second to none if you see the size and the population of the country. Without government support, sport will die. Government is the driving force behind sports which helps provide competition as well as platform.
3) Indian families hardly encourage their children to play any sports and don’t allow them to choose sports as a career option. Most Indian parents desires for their children to be a doctor, engineers. Besides, sport is treated as a hobby not as a career in our country and hence very small percentage of the population is indulge and willing to devote their life to athletics.
To turn this around, countless seminars, projects and initiatives are held by various sports authorities of India to support and help raise the quality in Olympics disciplines but have failed to produce desired outcome. In addition to this, various schemes were also implemented by the government of India but they yield no result. However, the success of several leagues like football, hockey, badminton and kabaddi leagues inspired youngsters. As a consequence, many new faces, from different corners of the country, especially from rural India, came up and went on to represent India on international level.
Constant Improvement
We have observed over the past few years that India has begun to offer competition in games. This is because we have talent and right aptitude. In games like hockey, badminton, tennis, there is an impressive progress.
Don’t measure success from the number of medals won. You must give importance to the fact that our boys and girls are constantly enhancing and improving their game.
Capability to shine
Just after the independence, sport athletics struggle a lot not only mentoring vise but also financially. But today, the story is totally different and way better than that. Given the growing number of youngsters taking sports as a career option, I can say that India has shown the potential to shine on the world shine.
In the end I would like to conclude that, our country does not lack in talent, all our youth need is proper motivation and encouragement. If the government concentrate on the struggling athletes and assist them by providing proper training to nurture their talents and also with financial support, infrastructure and facilities then INDIA will certainly and surely add more medals to its tally in the future. Moreover, it is the high time for us to change our views and perceptive and turn our attention to other sports rather than cricket and start applauding other games too.
