CASE 1
Year – 1900
Place – Paris
Referee – Athletes ready “Athletes on your mark, get set, go”.
Commentator – And there it is, the much awaited race of the day, the Men’s 200m final. The race has begun. Walter Tewksbury of United States is leading and he has won the race. Walter is the 200m champion. In second place, it’s Norman Pritchard from India and finally an Asian athlete wins the medal, India gets their first Olympic medal.
CASE 2
Year – 1983
Place – England
Commentator – Amarnath to Holding, there’s a big appeal and he has given it. India wins the World Cup, they defeat West Indies by 43 runs.
One frank question, how many of you know the first case? I bet 90% of you will not even known that Norman Pritchard was the first Indian to win a Olympic medal, but I bet even a small kid who understands cricket will know the significance of 1983 in Indian cricket.
What is the future of a player who wants to choose athletics as a profession? If the same question is asked for cricket, many of us will give this answer – If he has talent then surely he will make it to Indian team, why can’t we say the same thing for athletics?
If India can win an Olympic Medal in their first Olympics, then why can they do it in all Olympics?
The main reason behind this is that very less importance is given to athletics in India. Nobody even knows what are the major athletics event in India are. If any event take place, audience are not there to cheer, most of the seats go vacant on the ground. Even sponsors are not willing to invest their money on the athletes, even if they do then players are charged a nominal fee, which ultimately brings down the players’ confidence. Even the channels doesn’t broadcast minor athletics events, because they go in loss.
We all known Michael Phelps. He is one of the greatest Olympian ever to perform. He has won medals in so many Olympics. Why is this so?
A human being from another part of the world is able to perform then why are we Indians not able to do so. One reason may be self-confidence. One of the worst problems of Indian Athletics selection committee is that they drop the players who fail to perform once on international level.
Was Michael Phelps born to be swimmer?
Didn’t he fail at junior levels at the startof his career? But their selection committee didn’t act like the Indian committee. They kept faith in their players and now we all have seen what United States has produced. Michael Phelps has now most of the swimming records to his name.
When we ask people why China is performing well in athletics at the international level, many people give many answers, but the common one is that they have a large population. Is it so? Then India is second in terms of population, they why are we not performing well on higher levels?
Blaming each other for failure of athletics in India is not a solution. Selection committee should come up with some good ideas, if Indian athletes are to do well in 2016 Brazil Olympics.
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