The Paris Pointers

The Indian campaign at Paris officially ended with USA’s Kennedy Blades defeating Krygyzstan’s Medet Kyzy in the semi-finals of Women’s 76 KG Freestyle dashing Reetika Hooda’s hopes of a place in the repechage rounds. Reetika had lost in Quarters despite the scores being tied 1-1 as Medet had got the last point (yes, wrestling also has a boundary count equivalent to break ties). Somehow summing up India’s campaign – a good show by most athletes, yet most of them finishing up on the wrong side of that fine line!

First a bit of a boast – my predictions were 5-12 medals for India. Well, we ended up with 6 medals and six 4th place finishes. Two more close calls in Boxing and the small matter of Vinesh’s medal that just slipped away! Given this context, it should be called India’s best Games ever, yet somehow it never felt like that!

So before starting the Road to LA28, a lookback at how India’s Games went

1. Neeraj Chopra added to his claim of being India’s greatest individual sportsperson ever, and not just for his on-field exploits. So high has he set the bar that an Olympics silver medal seems a disappointment. After all he finished second with just two legal throws across Qualifying & Finals! And one of the rare Indian athletes who actually speaks up on issues that matter and not in a scripted manner either.
2. The Shooting Redemption – 21 qualifiers, entries in all 15 events, 7 finalists, 3 medals and 3 4th place finishes. The shooting contingent did a good job in recovering from the washouts at Rio & Tokyo. Great show by Manu Bhaker, Sarabjot Singh and Swapnil Kusale in getting 3 medals – the most ever by any discipline at a single edition of the Games for India.
3. Aman Sehrawat ensured that India returns with a medal from Wrestling for the 5th Games in a row. A rich legacy which even the fracas of the Wrestling Federation couldn’t stop.
4. India are no longer the most successful Hockey team in Olympics history. With Golds in both Men’s & Women’s categories, Netherlands now have those bragging rights, although we still have the most Men’s hockey medals. Overall, quite a decent show put up by the team in retaining the Bronze from Tokyo.
5. The 4th Place – For many years, Milkha Singh finishing 4th was India’s most celebrated Olympics moment while KD Jadhav’s bronze was barely a footnote. Hence not surprising that we have a special affinity with the 4th place! Arjun Babuta, Manu Bhaker, Lakshya Sen, Dhiraj-Ankita, Maheswari-Anantjeet and Mirabai Chanu have all added to this rich legacy. (Also, there was India – the Dutch B-girl in the Breaking, who finished 4th!)
6. Six – 1 Silver & 5 Bronze medals, equaling their second-best performance. Not a bad one in the overall context but certainly made a case of what could have been.

If Only – Now what’s an Olympics without a lot of What Ifs

• What if that last shot against Germany in the hockey semi-finals had gone in?
• 100gm – That was the difference between what could have been the ultimate sporting story and a disqualification. Vinesh Phogat fought hard, beat the best, reached the Finals and yet missed out on a medal. The medal may have been gone but the reactions to the loss from certain sections revealed a telling picture! Personally, this was one of the lowest moments in all my sports following days.
• 2.4 cm – Over a distance of 70m in the tie-break shot. Dhiraj Bommadevara hit a 10 pointer yet lost out because of being slightly further from the centre.
• 1 KG - margin from Bronze for Mirabai Chanu. But just not to be!
• 0.32s – the margin by which the Men’s 4x400m relay team missed a Finals berth!
• Nishant Dev – any of the judges could have scored that Quarter-final in the other direction and my namesake would have earned a medal. But it was not to be. Boxing scoring is not easy to understand. No wonder there is a good probability of it being removed from the LA roster.
• Manu Bhaker had a 3rd medal just slip away in a shoot-off.
• Nisha Dahiya – an unfortunate injury while leading 8-1 with under a minute to go. She gave everything yet couldn’t hold on. It was simply painful to even view. Hope she recovers fast.
• Reetika Hooda – losing on countback because her opponent was last to score!

What lies ahead?

Lots of felicitations for the medalists, with all and sundry staking their claim to the athlete’s success. Kudos to Manu’s team for initiating legal action against those using her image. Hopefully some introspection a la NRAI, especially from the likes of

• Athletics: why do Indian athletes mostly peak in qualifying and not at the main event?
• Archery: why do the archers keep flattering to deceive every single Games? They come in as World Champions, even have good ranking rounds and yet keep coming up short in the knockouts?
• Wrestling: the medals and excellent results should not hide the shenanigans of the Wrestling Federation and a real cleanup is the order of the day. Will it happen though?
• Badminton – they are doing mostly alright. While the men’s side has some depth, the question of who after Sindhu is now growing louder?

Let’s see if things change!

The Games beyond India

• Mondo Duplantis vaulting higher that anyone ever has
• Simone Biles doing a triple flip
• Katie Ledecky winning again (what a surprise)
• South Korean archers – who give you a glimmer of hope and then fire in those inner 10s to snuff it out!
• The 100m Men’s Finals where everyone went under 10s
• Isabell Werth – the first person to win a Gold at SEVEN different Games
• Yusuf Dikec – the Turkish shooter, who proved that even silver medallists become famous!
• That Surfing Photo

All these and more showing how far the limits can be pushed by the human body. Just how far ahead they are from “normal” folks. Well, here is a video of when Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce participating in the parents’ race at her kid’s school!

Also, for the online trolls – Remember these are elite athletes. Even when someone finishes 4th at the Games, they are the 4th BEST in the whole world at what they do, unlike most others! Not that the trolls would care!

Some thoughts on the Games

• There was no marchpast and no Chariots of Fire theme playing in the Opening Ceremony. How does that even feel like the start then?
• Also, rooms with no AC in peak summer; cases of arson; sabotage of railways; robbery incidents; a polluted Seine hosting swimming events! And yet the Games went on. Remember the abuse for much less at Rio Olympics or even the Delhi Commonwealth Games or? Why the dual standards?

Finally, as the Paris Games went on, those existential questions also kept cropping up? Why do we follow sports and link our happiness and mental well-being with something we have no control on? At times, was seriously jealous of those who have no interest in sports!

But anyways, we the followers move on! To LA28.

2022 – Top Ten Moments from the Indian Sports Arena

As we enter the last week of the year 2022 AD, it is time to make a list of things to remember the year going by. Presenting the Top 10 moments from the Indian sporting field (rated by yours truly).

1. Thomas Cup win: Stirring performances from Lakshya, Srikanth, Prannoy and Satwik-Chirag lead India to become just the 6th country to win the Thomas Cup. It was a culmination of a long journey to becoming a badminton powerhouse.
2. Neeraj Chopra becoming the Diamond League champion. Such is the amazing consistency of India’s first ever track & field Olympics champion that a silver in the World Athletics Championships (the first ever Indian to do so) is not his biggest moment of the year!
3. Avinash Sable winning the silver medal in 3000m Steeplechase at the Commonwealth Games and breaking Kenya’s dominance of the event. This is the first time since 1998 that Kenya did not have a clean sweep in this event!
4. MCG, Men's T20 World Cup, India vs Pakistan, Over 18.5 – Haris Rauf to Virat Kohli, lands for 6 behind the bowler off one of the most stunning shots seen in cricket – a straight punched loft over the bowler’s head! And somehow India sneak in a win out of nowhere after a dramatic last over.
5. Lawn Bowls Gold at Birmingham Commonwealth Games. An afternoon spent plonked in front of the TV watching Lawn Bowls 4s Final wasn’t a part of any plans. But Rupa Rani Tirkey, Nayanmoni Saikia, Lovely Choubey & Pinki Singh combined to bring a new sport to the collective Indian sporting minds. After all, we are fast learners (at least in learning the rules of a new game).
6. The Women’s Hockey team won the inaugural Nations Cup, getting their rightful place in the next season of Pro Hockey League. They should not have had to play this round given that as alternates the team finished 3rd in the previous edition of the League. But they proved once again that they belong in the top tier of World Hockey.
7. Deepti Sharma runs out Charlie Dean at the non-strikers end to seal a whitewash for India over England. A non-striker run-out (formerly known as Mankading) and that too at Lords! As expected, all hell broke loose on cricketing social media with the defenders of the so called “spirit of cricket” marching in on full battle mode! The debate kept going on and on for seemingly ages! Don’t remember so much attention to an incident in women’s game before!
8. Nikhat Zareen became the Boxing World Champion, India’s 5th ever female boxer! She also added a Commonwealth Games gold confirming that Mary Kom’s legacy is in good hands.
9. Mirabai Chanu lifting the silver at the World Championships with a sprained wrist!
10. Achanta Sharath Kamal, at the age of, 40 won 3 Golds and a Silver at the Commonwealth Games!

Other honorable mentions: Manika Batra winning the Bronze at Asian Cup; Rudrankksh Patil winning a World Cup Gold to qualify for the next Olympics Shooting; Bajrang Punia adding a 4th Wrestling World Championships medal and Vinesh Phogat getting her 2nd medal.

Finally for an announcement off the field of play. In a major step towards gender parity, BCCI announced that the women players will be given the same match fees as the men for internationals. A great initiative, but just the first step in a long journey to parity. And this is something basic to be done for all sports.

Now looking forward to the sporting year 2023, which has Hockey & Cricket World Cups, the postponed Asian Games (fingers crossed given the re-emergence of the Covid situation) and many Paris Olympics qualifiers scheduled!