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| SPORT TRIBUNE | Saturday, October 14, 2000, Chandigarh, India |
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Hum Honge Kamyab — ek din Time for hard introspection
What makes Jyoti superior |
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Postmortem but no subterfuge POST-MORTEM ending in subterfuges is a usual aftermath of a typical Indian ethos after a disastrous outing in the international arena. The post-Sydney scenario is not likely to be any different. If anything the debate promises to be more intense. Not that anything positive is likely to emerge this time. One thing, however, is certain. The focus will not necessarily be on the sports persons alone. The unusually large entourage of officials made even larger with the inclusion of government delegation, both from the Centre as well as from the Sates, will also come under scrutiny. Shah Nawaz Hussain, the Minister of State for Sports, and head of delegation, has been reportedly critical of India’s performance and is not likely to lose interest in the subject even though he is no longer in charge of the portfolio. He has been shifted to another post in the reshuffle of the Cabinet during the last weekend of September. He is also understood to be unhappy with the overflowing number of people who have made it Sydney under one
pretext or the other. As has been mentioned earlier the Athletics Federation is one national sports body which will come under heavy fire. Not because the athletes did not win any medals. No such things were expected. But it will have to explain why the athletes performed far below their recorded marks on home soil. With the exception of the women’s relay team which broke the national mark in the 4x400 metres heats, the whole lot of athletes, the throwers in particular, turned in disappointing performances. This has indeed been one of the worst ever Olympic Games for athletics. The non-performances in Sydney is likely to fuel rumours of drug-induced records on the domestic circuit. Quite obviously the inducements had been stopped. Hence the drastic fall in standards. Or was their something else that the public does not know? In defence the Athletics Federation may point a finger at the performances of the Indians in some other disciplines. But whereas the representatives in most of the disciplines had earned participation rights from the international federations by qualifying in various official competitions the AAFI had, in a manner, been very arbitrary in the selection of the large number of athletes. And it did justify the selection when the team took off but now that the veil is off and the level of performance shown to be rock bottom, questions are bound to be asked as to the genuineness or the lack of it, of the marks set in competitions in the domestic front. Someone has to take the responsibility for misleading the public and it need not be the coaches alone. On the other hand there have been exceptions in some other fields and a word of encouragement could certainly help shooters Anjali Vedpathak and Abhinav Bindra who finished eighth and 11th respectively. Laszlo Scucsak, the Hungarian coach of the team, has rightly said that though Anjali and Bindra could not land medals, they had performed within the “expected range” to justify the wildcards given by the international body. And boxer Gurcharan Singh too needs to be lauded and sympathised with. Rated among the top eight or 10 light-heavyweights in the world, Gurcharan put up a plucky show in the quarter-finals before losing out on count-back. As for the women weightlifters, one does not have to remind the detractors about the bronze medal won by Karnam Malleswari in the 63 kg category and the sixth place, on bodyweight by Sanmacha in the 53 kg class. She could have as well finished fourth. Not bad by any standards even though she could not repeat her earlier performance of the Asian Championships at Osaka, the second qualifying event. As for the hockey team, one indeed felt sorry for the boys. They played their hearts out in the crucial match against Poland and deserved to win by a handsome margin. It was a pity that the last minute equaliser by Poland robbed them of a place in the semi-finals. As Aswini Kumar, former President of the IHF, had remarked a few days earlier during a book release ceremony in Delhi, that a little bit of luck is needed always. Alas, that was not there for India in the match against Poland. Having sought out excuses one must view the whole tournament in the correct perspective. With the exception of the Australia-India match in the group and the title match between Korea and Holland in addition to the Pakistan-Holland encounter the general standard of the game at Sydney Olympics was not very high. The European giants, Holland and Germany, were not in the same class as the earlier teams wearing their colours. And Australia? It was hard to believe that this team, one of the best combinations at one stage, was faulting in trapping and shooting and most of the nuances. The same was the case with Holland and Germany. Spain had the potential but its record was spoilt by Poland. The drop in the standard of the game of these three teams and the continued waywardness of Pakis-tan, once again very temperamental, brilliant at times and very erratic on other occasions, was in sharp contrast to the improvement of the Indian team in this Olympics. Whatever the end result, a poor seventh place, the Indians really played much better than in earlier Olympics after Los Angeles. And the start too was heartening, the 3-0 in the lung opener against bogey team Argentina put the boys in the right frame of mind. The result was a buoyant two-all draw against Australia. The disappointment against Korea was but natural. It happens most of the time. India did play well enough to win but the dogged Koreans could not be shaken. Then came a revival against Spain before the dreadful outing against Poland. The boys were naturally dispirited. It was a question of being so close and yet so far. A semi-final berth may have worked wonders for the team’s moral. Yet in the overall reading one cannot but feel that the tournament this year was generally between teams of equal strength. In fact any one of the top eight teams could have as easily gone right to the title fight. The general standard with the exceptions mentioned, was generally mediocre. And luck did play its hand. Holland were lucky to be in the semi-final and must thank Great Britain for its title. But for Britain beating Germany, it would have been Germany and not Holland which would have gone through to the semi-finals. Similarly, one more goal against Poland would have seen India through (even a 2-2 draw would have been sufficient) and Korea would have been fighting for a place in the 5-8 category battle instead of making it to the title match. Once through to the semis the South Koreans proved to be a bogey team for Pakistan all over again. This whole exercise is not to make excuses for India not doing better. After all hockey like football and other ball games is all about scoring and saving goals. And in record books only the result will be mentioned. Nothing will be written about the twists and turns of fortunes. Whatever it is Indian hockey did retrieve much of its reputation and there is no need for any large- scale recrinations. Of course one will always regret that it could not achieve the minimum target of a place in the semi-finals. It was not a difficult target and this time the team really worked for it and deserved it too. But its performance will be seen in the overall picture of a general, dismal show by the country as a whole. That would be unfortunate. |
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Hum Honge Kamyab — ek din ‘HAMEIN Jeetna Hai’, was the motto, given to the Indian men’s hockey team before leaving for Sydney. A team does need motivation to rouse its winning spirit. Now that the team failed to make it to the semi-finals and even lost one more match for lower positions, the team has become the subject of criticism, even redicule. But the team had started at near-peak form, and in the earlier matches, it could be any body’s game. The defeat against Poland was a piece of bad luck, but the subsequent defeat even for the fifth position reflects sheer lack of fighting spirit and a dejected state of mind at not being able to rise to the occasion. It is easy for the critics to forget that ours is not a sportsloving country. Sports is still not a compulsory subject at the school level. At this moment of failure, it is imperative not to criticise the team, but to cast a good look at the state of sports in the country. It must not be forgotten that there are very few hockey turfs and the best ones at places like Delhi and Patiala are worn out. In a situation like this it is not fair to expect medals. The boys, however, need to be given inspiration and motivation to perform better in the future. Look at shooting. Chandigarh has the worst shooting range where city based Olympian Abhinav Bindra had been practising. The other international shooters such as Mansher, Manavjit, do belong to Punjab but they practise at Delhi since Punjab does not have facilities for trap and skeet shooting. In these circumstances, how much can the players be blamed? Our system is such that most of the money is spent on administrative matters. The ways of the Sports Authority of India reflect the reasons for the poor performance of the country. The players have to be motivated, and given facilities and financial support. Results will follow. Our last medal hope, Gurcharan Singh had a tough fight against Ukraine’s Andri Fedtchouk and they were level at 12-12 at the end of the bout. Later, the jury decided in favour of Andri. Gurcharan deserves to be congratulated. What do mottos such as “you can win if you want to” and “Hum Honge Kamyab”, signify? The players need continuous doses of such motivational reminders to inspire them to give their best. Karnam Malleswari won the bronze medal in women’s weightlifting, a less popular sport in our country. It only shows that individual sports cannot be sidelined and the nation must not concentrate only on cricket. A few days back, Doordarshan telecast how the Indians at Sydney were praying for the Indian contingent’s success. But our average Indian, who daily viewed the TV coverage from Sydney, might not have cared to send his good wishes to the boys and girls out there. Do these inspirational messages and motivation help? Mr D K Mukerjee, founder of the Chandigarh Badminton Association, gives one example. In 1974, the India versus Malaysia Thomas Cup badminton tie was in progress at Ludhiana. On the first day four matches were played in a schedule of nine and India won all the four convincingly. That evening the T-shirts worn by the visitors had “we will win” inscribed on them. The Indians laughed since they had to win just one more match to win the tie. When he talked to one of them, they all said: Yes, tomorrow, we will win all the matches”, and to the surprise of everyone, the confident and spirited Malaysians swept all the remaining five matches and returned a superb 5-4 win over India. This is what motivation and a positive attitude can do. “Usually a top player knows his likely performance before the start of a match. But the player at that point of time needs a thrust and external cheer for winning” says Rajeev Kaushal, a table tennis coach. Dr Vikram Talwar, a sportsman of yesteryear’s, says a player needs motivation and other kinds of cheering while he plays, the absence of which can lower his or her performance level. Let it not be forgotten that if Indian sportspersons have failed, it is because they were never on a par with their counterparts from other countries. In hockey and boxing, they had some chance. In shooting they performed better than the expectations. But at every level — district, state, national or international — the spirit of ‘Hum Honge Kamyab Ek Din” can draw the best out of a person. |
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Time for
hard introspection WITH
all the hype and hoopla over the Sydney Olympics over, it is time for some introspection. We live in times when a medal is the only measurement of a nation’s success. And the entire well being of a nation corresponds directly to its medal tally and a loss can even bruise nation’s collective ego. This is precisely why so much of investment goes into Olympic preparation. For, the Sydney athlete is as much as a product of his own genes and environment as of his country’s scientific approach towards sport. Unfortunately, in the world of sport the Indians, it seems, are still living in ancient age. The French fencer’s foil is made of aluminium used in state-of-the-art fighter aircraft. Aussie shooters practise on anthills to improve their concentration. And our best shooter Anjalai Vedpathak didn’t even have a shooting range to fire her rounds in her native Mumbai. Surely, we prepare our own recipe for disaster, nobody else does that for us. For us, the Olympic stage remains a ritual which comes after every four years. For other nations everything is so finely caliberated, so finely tuned. Who is going to tell the Indian athlete that there is something incredibly cruel with sport. That an athlete must wait for 4956 days to be judged on dive lasting just three seconds. That is sacrifice intolerable for the soul of the Indian athlete. Who will tell the Indian athlete that victory by itself is impossible; it means that there is only one guarantee- failure. And we seem used to embracing failure. All eyes were rivetted on our hockey team. And for once, this time Indian hockey seemed to have found its feet. But only to falter. In the crucial league match against Poland a last-minute goal shattered the great Indian dream to simithereens. When will the Indians develop that killer instinct. The other hope the Indian’s nurtured was in boxing, a sport which has made superior use of technology. Now judges are lightening quick to extend their hands at accepting bribes, rather than pushing the console to record a punch on the computer. There was unfortunate Gurcharan Singh, his face wearing the look of injured innocence, fell to his knees. And why waste paper extolling the virtues of all others, including our athletes, who went to Sydney? Success at Olympics is virtually a gateway to immortality. But the Indians’ simply won’t understand what the Olympics really mean. The Indian sportsman is more content to hide behind sub-continental truimphs, gloating over Asian games medals. No Indian seems to understand that the Olympics are a frightening place to be in. |
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Teeing-off WHAT
makes Jyoti Randhawa superior to other Indian professionals in the circuit? His unflinching commitment to the game. Displaying his will, he has not only cut down all fancy shots from his play, but he has successfully reduced the margin of errors. He plays consistently, reducing his rounds to level-par or near about. What is most important about his play is that he believes every day means a new round and he plays without carrying memories of good or bad play. Randhawa has already struck brilliant form as the season has just commenced. He appears to be on song winning competitions in his own style. His play in the Honda-Siel-orike was impressive. As compared to Randhawa, Mukesh and many other pros, including Jeev Milkha Singh, have yet to get into their groove after a long lay-off. In the competitions that he has participated, Mukesh has been hitting the ball well enough. But his short game needs tightening up. He misses putts that he should sink with his eyes closed. He has vast experience and he should play without any undue worries about his wrist injury, form and his reputation. It was nice watching Daniel Chopra playing on his favourite course, the Delhi Golf Club. His game was a mixture of light and shade. That has been his style of play for many, many years. Now settled in Sweden, he will be shortly figuring in the US PGA Qualifying School. For once professionals are extremely happy that more and more sponsors are joining in the circuit of golf. Apart from increased money, there has been many new professional competitions. This is what spurs pros because participating in competitions at home involves much less expenditure than playing abroad. If a pro does not make the cut in any competition in this country, he does not tend to lose much. There appears to be a welcome change in the attitude of corporate bigwigs. They have begun to realise that there are other sporting disciplines apart from cricket. Maybe allegations of match-fixing have led to this change. For the past five years, the Indian Open has not been staged at DGC course because of ban on cigarette advertisement. Another important competition has also been shifted out of Delhi to the DLF course, which is gaining in prominence. DLF is a tremendous course and it is not much far away from Delhi either. Whatever may be said for and against, DGC has been the hub of Indian golf. It is this club more than Calcutta that has played a leading role in popularising golf. But there is much to be done yet. The office-bearers, particularly the captain and president, should display respect for rules, regulations and norms instead of flouting them. Of late, there have been a spate of complaints against top notch functionaries for showing undue favours and considerations to persons who are not members. Maybe, they have acted in good faith. The club elections, scheduled for September, will be held on October 28. Get-togethers have been held to woo voters. About 550 of the 750 ‘A’ members will exercise their Franchise. Many members are of the view that the time has come when the constitution should be amended. They argue— and perhaps rightly — that ‘B’ members should also be granted facility to vote instead of only ‘A’ members casting their votes. As of now, Bikram Singh stands a good chance of reelection for the office of the President. Kapil Bhatia, who was to oppose him, is said to have withdrawn from the contest. Maybe, one or two members will contest but the election may not be as keenly contested as it was last year. Regardless of the fever for the elections, the course has been rolling smooth and true. What is satisfying is that more and more juniors are seen using the course. This should help raise the general standard. |
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Debacle at Sydney shocking THE accusations of Malleswari, our lone medal winner, are too serious to be ignored. She expected a gold medal, but had to be content with a bronze. She has squarely blamed her Indian coach for his behind-the-scene scheming at the time of selection trials as also during the competition. Similarly the same coach was allegedly responsible for dropping Kunja Rani, a medal prospect. The coach needs to be censured and prosecuted for his mischievous and unpatriotic conduct. A through enquiry is also called for into the process of selection of below-par participants. How the majority of the players and athletes managed to get qualified, is debatable. Their performance in Sydney was inferior to their best recorded in India, which most probably might have been fudged. ‘Flying Sikh’ Milkha Singh has already pointed out this aspect. Except for a pugilist, hockey team, runner Beenamol, badminton player P.Gopi Chand, tennis duo Leander Paes and Bhupathi and of course Malleswari, and a few others, the rest of the contingent consisted of passengers. It needs no emphasis that federations and players could not have asked for more as regard facilities, necessary funds, training, foreign coaches etc. It is also pertinent to note that our sports federations, in the garb of autonomy, have been found to be inefficient, irresponsible and regrettably non-accountable. Equally disturbing is the fact that in some important events such as football, volleyball and basketball we failed to qualify. What a pity for a country of more than one billion inhabitants! How a flock of 80 officials managed to watch the Sydney Olympics is scandalous. There were more VIPs than actual participants. The public will like to know about the number of dance and cocktail parties graced by these privileged people. J.K. Mago The performance of the Indian contingent at the Sydney Olympics is shocking and disgusting. It is a pity that our standard has reached the lowest ebb. The last minute goal and equaliser from Poland proved to be a rude shock for everyone. This draw eliminated India from the medal race. It is matter of shame that India have become so used to losing in all spheres and athletics. Players are now a frustrated and dejected lot. A country of one billion people has not been able to produce a single gold medallist. However countries which are only a fraction of India’s size won medals at Sydney. Indian sportspersons need motivation, killer instinct, stamina, spirit and determination. M.L. Batura It was extremely heartening to see the young Yuvraj Singh of Chandigarh making his debut in international cricket. He almost single-handedly gave India victory over world champions Australia. My best wishes to the young Yuvraj and other young players of Chandigarh who will be getting a chance to play in the Ranji Trophy and international matches. Chandigarh has the distinction of producing five international cricket players. Now Yuvraj should not become complacent after his initial success. Col A.S. Judge. II It was very heartening to see youngsters like Yuvraj Singh and Zaheer Khan performing against the Australians. This proves that we have talented and skilful youngsters. The match-fixing scandal has proven to be a blessing in disguise for the Indian cricket team. Such was the impact of these youngsters that every other member of the team was looking more fit and agile. It was not only their batting, bowling or fielding but more so their attitude that was most
impressive. The aggression and fighting spirit that was missing earlier was very much in evidence. It will not be surprising if players like Reetinder Sodhi and Mohammad Kaif make it big in the coming years. Maneet |
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