The first Olympic gold

Its party time!!! And finally India managed the first Olympic gold in an individual category. The entire credit should go to Abhinav Bindra. We as honest tax payers need not gloat about the gold! After all all sort of babu's blow up our hard earned money and nothing remains for actual sports persons. Well that's the reality. Lets accept it... Its truth. Probably the ratio of medal to contingent is the smallest in case of India; Almost half the contingent made up of babus and only one may be two medals.. its probably worse than Somalia!

The biggest disappointment.. and the story that even made it to Wall Street Journal is the disgraceful absence of Indian Hockey team. What a pity. We are not representing our national game in Olympics! Even though we have had fine players like Dhanraj Pillai, Ashish Ballal..they were all wasted. I still remember the scene on TV, Pillai's outburst and his men returned home triumphant Busan Asiad.
Here in the USA, sports and sportsmanship is appreciated, funded, encouraged. That's what keeps them up on the medals tally despite having about a fifth of India's population. If only things would improve in India. If only all our hard earned money that the tax man pinches off our purse reached the actual sports people. It cant be that the worlds second most populous country lacks in quality athletes.. if we can produce cricket stars we can definitely produce hockey stars, track and pool stars.. If only we could gather our act and do something about our ailing sports.
A couple of questions here. Mr Gill.. the tough cop, who has troubles keeping his pants up (remember Ropan deol bajaj) was at the helm of hockey administration despite the simmering angst of players that was expressed in public as well. Why was he there till he was sacked after the selection for money episode...What better can we expect from such a team? Nothing ... Therefore memorable performances has been far and few in between and Indian hockey is a pale shadow of itself..

The second question. Mr.Suresh Kalmadi.. He had been at the top of Indian Olympic Committee ever since i can possibly remember. Looks like Mr.Kalmadi has no other business than being a sports babu.He could be very clean and honest given his Air-force background but what about results. He had been promissing more medals in every games.. only to our disappointment. So where is the accountability? Nowhere to be seen. So Mr. Kalmadi gets to hang around and hog the lime lights for the Commonwealth Games Delhi 2010.. (Yeah! that probably his achievement indeed... getting the Commonwealth Games to India; we have to foot a hefty bill too) But what about finding, polishing and presenting the sporting gems India has the potential to produce?
No answers.

The questions remain. If only there was something like IPL for Hockey and a Chak De like victory could come true....If dreams could come true..