The Road to OLYMPICS-2020

When Vijay Kumar hit bull’s eye and Sushil Kumar brought a revival in the ancient sport of wrestling, it ushered a hope that indeed we can be a sporting nation!

The London Olympics 2012 was a varied experience for India. We had reasons to celebrate, lessons to learn and issues to discuss. While the infamous sports witnessed glory like never before the Indian hockey seemed battling a major crisis.

The medal numbers are best in the country’s Olympic history but have we reached the pinnacle of our sporting abilities or are we at the threshold of a peak to be scaled!!!

The sports minister hopes a medal count of 25 by 2020.But everything comes at a price and to realise this dream we need sheer hard work, determination and dedication.                                                           

The foremost thing besides all is that we the people need to change our mindset towards sports. Largely we still not regard sports as a profession or pay our sportsmen their due respect. We do appreciate our players occasionally but we don’t support them wholeheartedly.

Olympics are not a test of skill it is a test of the person and the charachter.And you build Olympians over years and not months. It starts from nurturing talents at a young age. We must promote children with sporting aptitudes and not merely condemn them as mischievous and rebelling. 

The institutional efforts have been effective superficially, we need to ensure that we penetrate deeper and reach out more.

The infrastructure facilities need immediate notice. We shouldn’t spend all the funds in building one art-of-class sports centre and concentrate all the efforts at one point, rather we need to diversify  our efforts, so we reach out to a larger number. Had all the cash prizes and rewards that were declared post Olympics, been declared earlier, they could have done wonders. We need to improve our preparedness. We can’t wait idly till 2018 and expect wonders in 2020. We need to start today and work concretely towards the goal.

Let’s not miss this ace from Saina Nehwal and jab and grab from Mary Kom.Lets kindle this spark into a fire. Let’s make India rise as a sporting nation.

Kshitij Jain