No place for despondency
Sports fans, fed an excessive amount of optimism by the media ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, must learn to take disappointments in their stride. Even if the odd medal is won it must be celebrated with gusto because the Olympic Games are not just about the physical barriers that come between a performer and a medal. The Games are viewed with such passion by the athletes of 200-plus nations that any among thousands of participants might derive inspiration to put up a medal winning performance when it matters most and when national honour seems to be riding on each move in the sporting arena. To write up or hype a nation’s athletes before an Olympics is a common enough universal failing. Only India, whose athletes have won only one individual gold medal in Olympic history, tends to overdo this with emotional campaigns, prayers and even extravagant television advertising featuring the nation’s Sports Minister in the frame too often for comfort. Such jingoism could only add to the pressures that all athletes face because they must produce their best in five years despite all the constraints that they face, more so after nearly a year and a half of pandemic panic and the concomitant restrictions on all of society. When an athlete makes breakthrough performance like Mirabai Chanu, it is to be celebrated. But it is not time to write a requiem for Indian hockey if the team gets rolled over by Australia. Sport has got a lot more competitive at a time when advancements in coaching, training and the methods of champions are available for all to see and emulate. A number of Indian athletes still stand a chance to get a medal and regardless of which metal — bronze, silver or gold — they can lay their hands on. Indian sportspeople could, however, see more misses than hits, a fact also borne out by history. Remember how Rudyard Kipling described a balanced man as one who can meet success and failure and treat them both as impostors.
Sport has got a lot more competitive
at a time when advancements in coaching, training and the methods of
champions are available for all to
see and emulate.