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| SPORTS TRIBUNE | Saturday, April 7, 2001, Chandigarh, India |
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How Gopi’s career was
resurrected How feminine is women’s boxing? |
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When will India start preparing? In a country where decision-taking is a long drawn process it would be pertinent to ask what exactly is being done by way of preparing for the Afro-Asian Games? The much-touted event is scheduled to take place in Delhi in November just six months from now but there is yet no sign of any activity in upgrading and renovating the venues. If there is any work being done or a decision on such matters has been taken and is on the anvil, it is only on paper. The Sports Ministry is so taken up by the controversy on whether an Indian team should take part in the Sharjah cricket tournament that it appears to have no time for anything else. Cricket is an aberration even if, for the time being, the Indian team, for a change, has won a few matches. But there is sport beyond cricket, and it is time that some thought was given to the preparation for the Afro-Asian Games. The Indian Olympic Association which is responsible for the show should now step up its involvement in the project. The lack of any activity so far is a matter for concern. So much is there to be done but with the exception of the Shivaji Stadium where a new synthetic turf is being laid (finally and after promises by chief ministers and other dignitaries for nearly five years) there is no perceptible movement in any of the other venues. In any case the relaying of the Shivaji Stadium turf was long overdue and had nothing to do with the Afro-Asian Games. It is the main hockey stadium in Delhi and the game has suffered considerably without a proper turf there for quite some years now. The Sports Minister, Ms Uma Bharti, made a big show of her interest in sport when she invited P.T. Usha to give an opinion on the state of the synthetic track at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. The Minister, obviously with very little knowledge about track and field, meant well and was obviously wanting to show her concern for the poor state of the track. But asking P.T. Usha for an opinion on the track was a bit too much. Usha may be a great athlete but she could hardly be credited with the technical knowledge concerning the track. All she could say was that the track was in poor condition and a new track was needed. Usha has been reported to have confessed her ignorance on the technical aspect of the laying of the track. Rightly too! A second opinion is not necessary about the urgent need for a new athletics track at the Nehru Stadium. There has been a number of complaints about the track and visiting athletes have been known to have passed adverse remarks on the capital having such poor track conditions, not in recent years, but as far back as 1996. Unfortunately, even the Amateur Athletics Federation of India and despite having Suresh Kalmadi as President, has not been able to move the hearts and minds of the authorities concerned to relay the track. But now there is no need for anyone to recommend laying of a new track. It is a must if the Afro Asian Games are to be held in Delhi this year. And while on this subject what has happened to the much publicised innovations and improvements at the National Stadium, venue of the hockey competition of the Asian Games of 1982? The plan envisaged provides for two synthetics hockey turfs there, one of which to replace the shredded apology of a synthetic turf in the main stadium and another a brand new one, on the open arena on the side of the stadium. The torn and tattered turf at the stadium is being used all these years for the Nehru and other tournaments because the one at Shivaji Stadium was in an even worse condition. But hopefully, everything will be in order by the time of the Afro-Asian Games. The big question is when is the work going to start. It is not only the laying of turf but the entire Stadium (both the National and the Nehru) need to be renovated. And if everything has to be finished on time that a start must be made now. In fact the work should have started as long time ago. Why it has not started yet is a big mystery? The National Rifle Shooting Association has often complained about the lack of ammunition and facilities and other associated matters. The shooting range at Tuglakabad required complete revamping. This was a range, the location of which was appreciated by many of the competitors during the Asian Games in Delhi. But since then the government appears to have survived on the lavish laudatory phrases without doing much in the upkeep of this beautiful range. Now with the Afro Asian Games as an excuse one hopes the entire project will get a facelift. But when it will be done is anybody’s guess. The NRAI will have to keep the pressure on the authorities and ensure that the shooting range will have a new look in the next few months. The NRAI has much to boast about in recent months what with the performances of some of the youngsters and in particular that of young Abhinav Bindra who has indeed blazed a great trail all over Europe. The shooting Range is not its only concern. The NRAI is also worried about ammunition and equipment in addition to providing a proper coach for the many young aspirants taking up this sport. Football is perhaps going to be the most exciting part of the Afro-Asian Games and much has to be done at the Ambedkar Stadium at Delhi Gate which is going to be the main venue. Modifications have been suggested by the Asian Football Confederation Secretary, Mr Peter Velappan, when he came to attend the Afro-Asian Games Meeting. The stadium is one of the venues which is always in use in the capital what with the Durand and other tournaments in winter and the keenly fought local league in the summer. But a lot of work is required on this stadium, particularly in regard to increasing the seating capacity. One hopes that this is done well in time for the Afro-Asian Games. Also requiring revamping is the swimming pool and the stadium at Talkatora, a really impressive monument, built specially for the Asian Games. The Finance Minister has sanctioned Rs 20 crore for the Afro-Asian Games in the budget. This amount will be augmented by a further Rs 10 crore in next year’s Budget. The money allocated should be sufficient to meet the immediate requirements of the Afro-Asian Games since except for the new turf at the National Stadium and the national stadium itself, the structures were all made ready for the Asian Games of 1982. Very little has been done by way of maintenance. The Afro-Asian Games is thus a big excuse for upgrading and revamping the whole sports stadia in the capital. One never knows when another chance will come. |
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First to score 10,000
runs Indian run machine Sachin Tendulkar became the first player to complete 10,000 runs in the history of limited overs internationals. He achieved this feat when he reached 34 during his 139-run knock in the third one-day international against Australia at Indore. It was the 259th innings of his 266th one-day international match. Tendulkar's batting performance:
Australia 31 31 — 1552 50.60 143 6 Bangladesh 6 5 — 199 39.80 54 — England 14 14 1 384 29.53 91 — Kenya 5 5 3 410 205.00 140* 3 New Zealand 31 30 1 1279 44.10 186* 3 Pakistan 43 41 4 1335 36.08 118 2 South Africa 36 36 — 1117 31.02 122 2 Sri Lanka 45 43 5 1760 46.31 137 6 U.A.E. 1 1 — 63 63.00 63 — West Indies 26 26 4 843 38.31 105 1 Zimbabwe 28 27 4 1163 50.56 146 5 Total
266
259
22
10105
42.63
186*
28
Sachin took 11 years and 103 days to reach this milestone. Born on April 24, 1973, at Mumbai, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar made his international debut against Pakistan at Gujranwala on December 18, 1989, with a second ball duck. He completed his 1000 runs against Zimbabwe at Hamilton on March 7, 1992, during his 81-run knock. It was the 34th innings of his 36th one-day international match. At Sharjah on April 13, 1994, Sachin Tendulkar completed his 2,000 runs in his 63-run knock against United Arab Emirates. It was the 70th innings of his 73rd match. Sachin completed his 3,000 runs in his 96th match, 93rd innings at Sharjah on April 9, 1995, during his unbeaten 112-run knock against Sri Lanka. The master batsman played 112 innings in 115 matches to complete his 4,000 runs. He achieved this feat during 17-run knock against South Africa at Sharjah on April 17, 1996. In the 138th innings of his 141st match against South Africa at Durban on February 12, 1997, Sachin completed 5,000 runs in limited overs internationals during his 32-run knock. The former Indian captain, completed his 6,000 runs in one-day internationals when he reached 45 during his 95-run knock in the first final of the Silver Jubilee Independence Cup at National Stadium, Dhaka on January 14, 1998. It was the 7,000-run club during 128-run knock in the 189th innings of his 196th one-day international match against Sri Lanka at Colombo on July 7, 1998. During the 1999 World Cup in England, the little master completed 8,000 runs when he reached seven in his 45-run easy against Pakistan at Manchester on June 8, 1999. It was the 209th innings of his 217th one-day international match. Sachin Tendulkar joined the 9,000-run club in one-day internationals during his 93-run knock against South Africa at Baroda. It was the 235th innings of his 242nd one-day international match. The right hand opening batsman became the highest run getter in limited overs internationals when he reached 15 during his 69-run knock against New Zealand in the final of the ICC Knockout Cricket Tournament at Nairobi on October 15, 2000. He surpassed fellow countryman Mohammed Azharuddin's tally of 9378 runs. Azharuddin had accumulated his 9378 runs in 334 matches while Sachin did in his 253rd match. Tendulkar who led India in 73 one-day international scored 2454 runs at 37.75 with six centuries and 12 fifties as captain. His highest score in limited overs internationals is 186 not out against New Zealand at Hyderabad on November 8, 1999.
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How Gopi’s career was
resurrected Many a promising and flourishing sports career have come to a premature end due to unforeseen injuries which could not be effectively treated and the role of sports medicine in nursing back the injured to their feet was once again emphasised when Pullela Gopichand won the All-England Badminton Championship early this month. If Gopichand is smashing his opponents to smithereens on the court, no small measure of the credit should go to an unassuming, but internationally known arthroscopic surgeon Dr Ashok Rajgopal. It was Dr Rajgopal, who gave a new lease of life to Gopichand’s knee, as it were, and helped him stand on his own feet, to resume his badminton career, which, at one stage, had looked all over. Gopichand suffered from “complex ligament injuries” on his left knee in 1994, 1996 and 1997-98 and it was Dr Rajgopal’s magic touch with the scalpel for “ligamentary construction”, that put the shuttle king up and floating once again. It was not the surgery alone that helped Gopi recoup. The post-surgery care was as important as the surgery itself. To put it in Dr Rajgopal’s words: “Gopi was put through a course of rehabilitation and exercise, which took him about 7 to 8 months to recover from the injury and get back to fitness level”. Gopichand was lucky that his injury occurred in the nineties. Had he been born earlier, and his injury had come in the seventies or early eighties, he too would have joined that illustrious group of sportsmen like long-jumper T.C. Yohannan (whose record leap had fetched him a gold in the Teheran Asian Games in 1974), Olympian hockey custodian Charles Cornelius and centre-forward Rajesh Mishra, who had to cut short their brilliant sports careers in the absence of the expertise of the kind of Dr Rajgopal to “reconstruct” their caved in knees. In fact, till the 1982 Asian Games in Delhi, sports medicine, as an important branch of sports development, was almost totally absent in the country, though experts like Chittaranjan Ranawat, who set right Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s knee, was the country’s product, and had worked here before migrating to the USA. The advent of Dr Rajgopal in Delhi, who studied at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, and did advanced training in knee surgery at Liverpool and Cambridge (United Kingdom), before setting up shop in the capital, has changed the mode and method of treating sports injuries with a combination of holistic healing approach, and magical surgery techniques. Gopichand, Baichung Bhutia, Joe Paul Ancheri, (football) Ashok Kumar and Sanjeev Kumar, (former Olympians) Amit Khanna and Shakti Singh (athletes), Sunita Godara (marathoned) and Bishan Singh Bedi are some of the well-known sports personalities who have benefited from Dr Rajgopal’s scalpel. “God of Small Things” fame Arundathi Roy is another celebrity patient of Dr Rajgopal, as the doctor said with a shy smile that he mended her knee perhaps after her famous “Narmada Walk”. While Dr Rajgopal pitched tent in Delhi, Dr Anand Joshi in Mumbai, Dr Thomas Chandy in Bangalore and Dr David Rayan in Coimbatore were carving out a niche for themselves in arthroscopic surgery in their respective regions, before their name and fame spread far and wide. “Arthroscopic surgery became popular in India after the 1982 Asian Games”, observed Dr PSM Chandran, Director of Sports Medicine, the Sports Authority of India. He too emphasised the need for proper “post surgery care” to prevent sports injuries from recurring, though he added that “you can’t prevent an injury, but only minimise it”. In Gopichand’s case, Dr Rajgopal went far beyond his brief to help the player regain his confidence and the fire to fight and win. The doctor also contributed his bit in Gopi’s hunt to secure a good sponsor. “Gopi is absolutely normal now. His knee is perhaps a little bit stronger than before. Another five to six years of active badminton is left in him”, Dr Rajgopal told The Tribune, in a chat. “I looked upto him as a friend, not as a surgeon. When he was down, we tried to boost him. When sponsorship was a problem, we tried to arrange sponsorship for him. We instilled in him the belief that he could win the All-England. And he did”, continued the doctor. Dr Rajgopal said that in “pivotal” - or high velocity-sports like badminton, knees are vulnerable to injuries. But thanks to the advancements made in sports medicine in India, champion material like Gopichand needn’t worry over much about tearing the cartilage or injuring their knees. The Rajgopals and Anand Joshis are there to refix the broken joints. |
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How feminine is women’s boxing? “Now touch gloves, go to your corners and come out fighting. Good luck, ladies.” We tap fists. I look up at her. She looks terrified. Good. I’m in sensory overdrive — blinding lights, wolf whistles, heart thumping — but only the skyscraper girl is in focus. She is “Raging Belle”, six foot three, six wins, three by way of knockout. I should be the scared one — it’s my first time and she’s got two weight classes on me — but I’ve spent two petrified weeks stalked by malevolent raging butterflies. I’m done with nerves. I take my corner, my trainer hisses our simple plan one last time: “Throw the first punch, Kadie, big right hand. Knock her thoughts out!” He slips off my robe, slides in my mouthguard, whips out the stool and ding! In 12 minutes, 1,500 Philadelphia fight fans will be female boxing converts. Back then, in 1997, I didn’t intend to write a book about boxing. Although I am a writer, I wasn’t doing this for the material. What I was doing in gloves in a ring, beating up a giantess (and me a nice middle-class feminist from Holland Park, west London), was what came to interest me as much as the sport itself. What happens when you transpose generic female motivations and confusions into the boxing ring — that was the stuff of a book. Exhausted and bleeding in shorts, earning roars of approval for violence, how feminine is that? How feminist? Have gender roles warped out of all recognition, or are the thousands of women who now box all freaks? Or perhaps, as many people in England believe, boxing itself is a freak sport which is dangerous and barbaric and should be banned. Being pacific by nature, I tended toward that opinion myself until I came to understand what goes on behind a boxer’s eyes. But when a boxer has breasts, what difference does it make, exactly? In America, where I live, attitudes to female boxing veer wildly between adulation, scorn and terror, but the sport does exist in the public awareness. In Britain there’s a bit further to go before anyone takes it for granted that women can and should box. The British Medical Association, of course, hates it. “A demented extension of equal opportunities” was what it called British welterweight Jane Couch’s victory at industrial tribunal which won her a licence to box at home. To me, the undoubted dangers of boxing are a side issue, though, and a convenient platform from which to defend the status quo. It’s the sheer nakedness of boxing that really bothers us and it’s what drew me to it. The boxer is the most masculine of archetypes. I, though a big, rather muscly person who looks stupid in a leotard, still found it tough to convert my self-image into the figure of a convincing pugilist. There were hardly any other women there then, back in 1993, so I used men as models. Then more women trickled in. We were mirrors for each other, prototypes. Every permutation of womankind began to troop through Gleason’s gym, some to fight, most just to train. The pace in New York picked up in 1995, when the premier amateur tournament, the Golden Gloves, started a female division, which 40 women entered. What drew them — and me — was that it seemed iconoclastic to be boxing, that it was fun to be a pioneer, that it looked cool, that it was empowering. But boxing touches more subtle places, too. Matters such as what to do with anger, how to be vulnerable yet protected, open-hearted but no fool, aggressive and still kind. I also found in the boxing gym relief from annoying, tenacious self-loathing in the body department, for lots of reasons, including the fact that there, instead of fighting your weight, you fight at your weight. Boxing-training can make a girl confront femininity issues, but it’s fighting where the paradoxes really start flying. I find sparring, or practice-fighting, with men easy. I have no doubt a man can take my hardest punch. Sparring with women, however, brings up a quasi-feminist quandary that’s very uncomfortable. When I first sparred with a woman of equal standard and weight, it felt unnatural to fight her. I was stuck between my burgeoning boxer nature and the role I assume in the world, in which I strive to be kind and want everyone to feel good. The internal battle that ensued would always cancel out the real one. But eventually I got over it by simply not thinking — which is rudimentary sports psychology, I guess, but which has a parallel outside the ring. I think women do this too much: worry about what the other is feeling instead of standing up for what we want. We’re supposed to dislike confrontation, but boxing taught me how nice, how clean, confrontation can be. Once I got over the frankly insulting impulse to let the other girl win, I found sparring incredibly bonding. You’re letting each other violate certain civilised principles we live by, then punishing each other for doing so — instant karma. And boxing releases the pressure of bottled-up fury. I can understand now why men pick fights. When my book came out in the USA, several interviewers posited that the humanity would leak out of a world in which women fighters were commonplace — an attitude I expect to find in Britain, too. This is absurd. Training to box requires such discipline and energy that (Tyson notwithstanding) there’s no viciousness left over to spill into the world. Last year, Muhammad Ali’s youngest, Laila, decided to take up her dad’s profession, followed by Joe Frazier’s daughter Jacqui. In June they will fight each other, a prospect Laila told me she finds ridiculous, though inevitable. She is training right, she is talented and she is all too aware that she can single-handedly kill or cure women’s professional boxing. In the amateur corner, the seventh women’s New York Golden Gloves finals take place this month at Madison Square Garden, followed this summer by the first women’s internationals on American soil. Athens hosts the 2004 Olympics, where there’s a slim chance women will box. It’s obvious that there’s a split decision from all the judges on where women’s boxing is going. As for me, I quit competition because I lacked the one thing you can’t fight without: the overriding need to prevail in the ring. Plenty of women do have this. To date, I am the only retired professional, the Ancient Mariner of the locker room, fighting the compulsion to waylay women and relate my tale at enormous length. Instead, I wrote the book.
— By arrangement with The Guardian “The Boxer’s Heart by Kate Sekules was released in the UK on March 22. |
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Recently two events in Indian sports were the topic of discussion. Our cricket team defeated Australia in the Test series played on our land. For playing well, the Governor of Punjab and the Prime Minister sent congratulatory messages to the family of one player, namely Harbhajan Singh. Sparing some moments for sportsmen is really appreciable. He was presented with gifts, and cheques. Doordarshan gave wide coverage. Many newspapers wrote editorials on the victory. The second event was India’s title win in the nine-nation Prime Ministers Gold Cup Hockey Tournament at Dhaka. Playing on foreign soil, we defeated all, including arch rivals, Pakistan. Unfortunately no Governor, minister, TV channel or newspaper came forward to boost the morale of our hockey players. My single question is: “Is cricket our national game and should all other games be ignored? SURINDER PAL SINGH, Gurgaon Cricket win The Indian cricket team deserves congratulations for winning the hard-tough Test series against the mighty Australians. The series will be remembered as Australia versus Harbhajan Singh. Singh dominated the series so much (by capturing 32 wickets) that the second best bowler could not get even 10 per cent of the wickets taken by Harbhajan. Had Harbhajan injured himself in between the series what would have been the fate of the Indian team? All other bowlers shared only 17 wickets between themselves, that too with an average of over 40. Indian selectors should search for another youngster and give him sufficient chance to get established in the team instead of calling and dropping players for each match as has been the case with Hirwani, Sanghvi, Kulkarni, Joshi and S. Singh. VED PRAKASH,
Kaithal
Aussie comeback Kudos to Steve Waugh and his men for having made a remarkable come- back in the ongoing five match one-day series by levelling it in the second match at Pune. It appeared to be a one-sided match from the Indian innings itself. I believe the Kangaroos were given enough psychological boost and they almost dominated the game. At first they did not let the top Indian batsmen to settle down with their superb fielding effort that saw as many as three run outs. Then once they came to bat Mark Waugh was in a mood to play a long innings. The Australians were fighting till the last ball. B.M. PURI,
Nauni
Test cricket This is with reference to the opinion expressed by Mark Taylor. I support his idea but with a little difference. Reduction in the number of days from five to four in Test cricket shall certainly do no good except for saving one full day. This way the deciding factor will become minimal thereby causing a sudden decline in the public interest. I favour Test matches on one-day pattern in order to maintain the optimal level of interest and entertainment of spectators simultaneously permitting the cricketers to demonstrate their skill and technique. Secondly each team should be allotted 180 overs for two innings with 90 overs a day on alternate days. Field restrictions currently in practice in one-day matches may also be applied in a modified form. BALBIR
KALHAR, Kapurthala
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