India at Olympics 2012

Gagan Narang

Sania

Mary Kom

Vijayakumar

As on date India has won 3 medals in the 2012 London Olympics .Shooter Vijaykumar won silver in 25 Metrers rapid fire pistol category,Saina Nehwal  won bronze in women's singles Badminton and  Gagan Narang won bronze in 10 M air rifle shooting .The previous best medal tally of India was 3 medals (one gold and 2 bronze ) at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 .Last Olympics gold medalist Abhinav Bindra crashed out early in 10 M air rifle shooting.For the first time Women boxing is included in London Olympics .The Manipur girl Mary Kom has already entered the Semi finals and is assured of one medal .Sushil Kumar, last Olympics bronze medalist might also do well in wrestling ,expected to start tomorrow. Vikas Gowda has entered the finals of the men's discuss throw. Already 4 medals are asssured .If Sushil kumar and Vikas Gowda manage to get 2 more medals ,this would be by far the best performance of India in Olympics.Another medal prospect Vijendar singh,  2008 Olympics bronze medalist also crashed out at quarterfinals in Boxing.There are 4 more days for the London Olympics to come to the close .Hopefully India would improve its medal tally by a slender margin over 2008 Beijing Olympics.

When Indian athelets reached  finals in their respective events, that was considered a great performance  in the past.Milkha Singh 1960 Rome ( fourth place in 400 metres), Gurbachan Singh Randhawa 1964 Tokyo (fifth place in 100 m hurdles),  Sriram singh 1976 Montreal ( seventh in 800m), P.T Usha in 1984 Los Angeles ( fourth in 400m hurdles) who unfortunately lost her bronze by 1/100th of a second and the 4 member squad of the 400m. women's relay P.T.Usha, M.D.Valsamma, Vandana Rao, Shiny Abraham reached seventh place, the same year were all connsidered great performances by Indian standards.It must be remembered we eulogized these performances at home those days. Now from 2008 Beijing Olympics India has started winning medals. It is heartening to note India will improve its medal's tally in London  Olympics,2012.

But what is intriguing is, why a country of 1.2 billion people, not able to produce world class athletes ?. What should we do to improve our performances in International sports arena ? Should we follow what China and US do to nurture talent ?It has to be admitted we do not spot young talents and nurture them. Sports persons in India come to the limelight, because of their own efforts.It is believed, in US there are private sponsors to develop and nurture sports. On the other hand China has a sports school model.They have a special selection method for these sports schools.They are selected on the physical predisposition for a given sport.Many Chinese athletes were trained by US trainers,most of them were Olympians .Hundreds of Chinese athletes were also trained at US Phoneix  sports training facility.Some of them were trained at the Los Angels facility.Most importantly Chinese athelets are paid salary by the government for training and expect them to perform They receive bonus for performances.In contrast in India we want amateur athelets to win medals for the nation.China and US has best world class facilities for training.China provides 24 x 7 access to sports facilities to their sportsmen and sports women undergoing training .In China ,all medal hopes live and train together at the National training center.

USSR dominated the Olympics ,before its collapse .After its collapse US dominated the Olympics medal tally for a brief period. Now  US is overshadowed by the supremacy of the new sporting titan China .USSR also subdised sports .China now follows the USSR model of subsidizing sports.All the sports schools and colleges in China are subdised.Most importantly china has a vision for its sports performances .In China the government runs a machinery with time bound sports goals.Even cricket has become a popular game in China in the recent past.Look at the goals set by the Chinese Cricket Association for the next 14 years.To have  720 teams across the country in a well-organized structure by 2009 .This has been already achieved.To have 20,000 players and 2,000 coaches by 2015,To qualify for the World Cup by 2019 and  gain Test status by 2020 .

What is required is adequate funds and resources to upgrade infrastructure, equipments and  facilities.Identify sporting talents country wide at a young age.Nurture them by a centralized sports authority in a national center .This would facilitate competition from the best in the nation at their age groups. Intensive training at par with international standards are to be given.

The adversaries of the Chinese model say children selected for sports are deprived of education and are forcibly made to stay away from parents in China.In a country like China where everything is under state run machinery,it could be possible,but not in India.We also don't want our children to lose their childhood .We can surely find a suitable model to suit our country and promote sports .The sports and youth affairs ministry has a huge role to play in shaping the future medal prospects of India in International arena.Government should also encourage private sponsors to come forward to train future medal prospects . Like any other ministry ,the sports ministry should also have time bound goals like China .Once this is publicized,they could become accountable.