BYE BYE BEIJING and to hell with copyright...
Here's an article that I found to be worth a read in the Monday's edition of TOI, this chap has got a decent point...
Why waste money preparing for Beijing Olympics when we know we are never going to make a dent in the medals tally...
Better focus on the 'core competencies', viz., cricket etc.!!!
Bye Bye, Beijing
Why India Should Opt Out of Olympics
By Vinay Kamat
After saying yes to Olympics all these years, let us learn to say no. Our record speaks for itself. We participate, we don’t compete. That neatly sums up our life at Olympics. Such a performance is baffling, worrying. But it is also instructive. Even as the herd — rest of the world, that is — prepares for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, it is time to ask ourselves whether we should follow them, too. After all, Olympics have changed a lot. If you think that the spirit of fun drives the Games, you are mistaken. The muscle of competitiveness now motors every event. And why shouldn’t it? Physical readiness, mental toughness, and ruthless ambition have changed sport into a global contest. Swimmers Michael Phelps and Ian Thorpe do not compete; they train to calculate their chances. The big story four years hence will be an East-West slugfest: Chinese planning versus US precision.
For all its rhythm and beauty, sport is also jagged and ugly. Although magic and despair are the soulmates of sport, there is hardly any place for losers. Nothing sums up this feeling better than gymnast Paul Hamm’s emotive gasp after winning the gold: “I dug down deep and I fought for everything.” Boston Globe equated the endeavour with romance: “The romantic arena can be loaded with awkward stumbles and miscalculations that might keep a person single if he or she were to dwell on the negatives of bad dates instead of the possibilities of love.”
But it was also the fear of failure that drove Hamm at Athens. It was the rare ability to cut the Gordian knot of human tolerance — and win. And when Hamm did that, he proved that Olympics are not about athletic competence alone.
To race is to win. If it can’t win, why should India race? Let’s look at our Olympic pickings since 1900, when India first participated in the Games. Our achievement at the end of the Athens Olympics stands at eight gold, two silver, and five bronze. And, within a few months, a quarter of a century would have elapsed since we last bagged a gold. So, do we really need to be in the race? Or, do we need to thoroughly start preparing for one?
If Olympics have become tough, competitive, almost corporate-like in execution, why can’t India think laterally? Our athletes are not world-class; our training infrastructure sucks; and our sport vision is myopic. The upshot: After a series of false starts, it is time to pull out of something that yields no returns — time to sit out the Olympics. There is nothing wrong with that. Corporates do that all the time when businesses go bad. They even do that when business is plateauing. Why should sport be different? A “no” would give India an opportunity to rethink, “dig down deep” and prepare for conquest. It can always go back to the arena after a few years, but as a team that is sure of itself.
Today, there’s nothing more boring or disheartening than India at the Olympics. Post-Olympics, we debate India’s latest flop show. Pre-Olympics, we discuss the sum of all failures. We measure our prowess on the Olympic scale. We lament our failure. But we come up with one gold-medal solution. Sometimes, a silver is enough to satisfy our downscaling expectations. Why don’t we lay siege to all our fears?
After all, Olympics are not the ultimate benchmarks for human achievement. Take tennis and football, where Wimbledon and FIFA’s World Cup have become the meccas of sport. So, why fret over Olympics when sport is fragmenting itself and creating its own niches of excellence? In fact, Olympics are far removed from the world of computers where higher, faster, stronger also means brainier. Online Olympiads are distant dreams still, though broadband gaming communities are ballooning by the day.
This is not to say that India should now forget sport and, instead, create more IITs and IIMs, the nurseries of entrepreneurial and managerial talent. It is only to point out that India can perform if it sticks to its proven strengths. Why not focus relentlessly on cricket, chess, and, say, hockey? Is anybody even asking: After Sachin, who? Or, are we awaiting another miracle at Shivaji Park? Despite India’s wins, Indian cricket is a success story crafted by individuals. Unlike the Aussies, these ain’t products churned out regularly by super-infrastructure and top-notch local contests. These are stories of individual excellence that await sequels. But sequels can only be crafted by vision and strategy. I
t is a similar story in hockey. All our Olympic golds have come from this sport, but Indian hockey is in total disarray. It lacks everything, from discipline to finish. And if you are talking about team spirit, the flesh is still weak. The key to hockey lies in creating the building blocks. It lies in looking beyond Olympics by thinking anew. It starts with reviving the cradles of skill like Coorg (hockey) and Shivaji Park (cricket).
Let us not kill ourselves over the Olympics. Let us retreat to tone our sinews. Let us rebuild our competencies. Let us refocus to sharpen our vision. Let us starve ourselves of glory. Only then can we think and triumph like Sun Tzu’s “hungry man”. And start from scratch, by inspiring ourselves.
Why waste money preparing for Beijing Olympics when we know we are never going to make a dent in the medals tally...
Better focus on the 'core competencies', viz., cricket etc.!!!
Bye Bye, Beijing
Why India Should Opt Out of Olympics
By Vinay Kamat
After saying yes to Olympics all these years, let us learn to say no. Our record speaks for itself. We participate, we don’t compete. That neatly sums up our life at Olympics. Such a performance is baffling, worrying. But it is also instructive. Even as the herd — rest of the world, that is — prepares for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, it is time to ask ourselves whether we should follow them, too. After all, Olympics have changed a lot. If you think that the spirit of fun drives the Games, you are mistaken. The muscle of competitiveness now motors every event. And why shouldn’t it? Physical readiness, mental toughness, and ruthless ambition have changed sport into a global contest. Swimmers Michael Phelps and Ian Thorpe do not compete; they train to calculate their chances. The big story four years hence will be an East-West slugfest: Chinese planning versus US precision.
For all its rhythm and beauty, sport is also jagged and ugly. Although magic and despair are the soulmates of sport, there is hardly any place for losers. Nothing sums up this feeling better than gymnast Paul Hamm’s emotive gasp after winning the gold: “I dug down deep and I fought for everything.” Boston Globe equated the endeavour with romance: “The romantic arena can be loaded with awkward stumbles and miscalculations that might keep a person single if he or she were to dwell on the negatives of bad dates instead of the possibilities of love.”
But it was also the fear of failure that drove Hamm at Athens. It was the rare ability to cut the Gordian knot of human tolerance — and win. And when Hamm did that, he proved that Olympics are not about athletic competence alone.
To race is to win. If it can’t win, why should India race? Let’s look at our Olympic pickings since 1900, when India first participated in the Games. Our achievement at the end of the Athens Olympics stands at eight gold, two silver, and five bronze. And, within a few months, a quarter of a century would have elapsed since we last bagged a gold. So, do we really need to be in the race? Or, do we need to thoroughly start preparing for one?
If Olympics have become tough, competitive, almost corporate-like in execution, why can’t India think laterally? Our athletes are not world-class; our training infrastructure sucks; and our sport vision is myopic. The upshot: After a series of false starts, it is time to pull out of something that yields no returns — time to sit out the Olympics. There is nothing wrong with that. Corporates do that all the time when businesses go bad. They even do that when business is plateauing. Why should sport be different? A “no” would give India an opportunity to rethink, “dig down deep” and prepare for conquest. It can always go back to the arena after a few years, but as a team that is sure of itself.
Today, there’s nothing more boring or disheartening than India at the Olympics. Post-Olympics, we debate India’s latest flop show. Pre-Olympics, we discuss the sum of all failures. We measure our prowess on the Olympic scale. We lament our failure. But we come up with one gold-medal solution. Sometimes, a silver is enough to satisfy our downscaling expectations. Why don’t we lay siege to all our fears?
After all, Olympics are not the ultimate benchmarks for human achievement. Take tennis and football, where Wimbledon and FIFA’s World Cup have become the meccas of sport. So, why fret over Olympics when sport is fragmenting itself and creating its own niches of excellence? In fact, Olympics are far removed from the world of computers where higher, faster, stronger also means brainier. Online Olympiads are distant dreams still, though broadband gaming communities are ballooning by the day.
This is not to say that India should now forget sport and, instead, create more IITs and IIMs, the nurseries of entrepreneurial and managerial talent. It is only to point out that India can perform if it sticks to its proven strengths. Why not focus relentlessly on cricket, chess, and, say, hockey? Is anybody even asking: After Sachin, who? Or, are we awaiting another miracle at Shivaji Park? Despite India’s wins, Indian cricket is a success story crafted by individuals. Unlike the Aussies, these ain’t products churned out regularly by super-infrastructure and top-notch local contests. These are stories of individual excellence that await sequels. But sequels can only be crafted by vision and strategy. I
t is a similar story in hockey. All our Olympic golds have come from this sport, but Indian hockey is in total disarray. It lacks everything, from discipline to finish. And if you are talking about team spirit, the flesh is still weak. The key to hockey lies in creating the building blocks. It lies in looking beyond Olympics by thinking anew. It starts with reviving the cradles of skill like Coorg (hockey) and Shivaji Park (cricket).
Let us not kill ourselves over the Olympics. Let us retreat to tone our sinews. Let us rebuild our competencies. Let us refocus to sharpen our vision. Let us starve ourselves of glory. Only then can we think and triumph like Sun Tzu’s “hungry man”. And start from scratch, by inspiring ourselves.
posted by Ankur Pruthi at Thursday, September 16, 2004
1 Comments:
That was a nice article by Vinay. I fully agree to the fact that in a sport it is the winning and not the participating spirit that matter. In fact in any sphere of life one should have a winning spirit. We Indians have become too humble by saying that it is enough to participate. We lack the killer instinct for any sports (for that matter it is the same humble attitude in most other fields apart).
Thats why we dont perform much at the international level. Even if we sometimes do perform, we advertise it too much (more that what we deserve). This is what I call false prestige. And it really stymies our progress in any field.
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