Archive for August 2008
It’s raining gold, silver (?), and bronze
No, I am not a sports freak and I am nowhere into sports except the daily running around my son and occasional “catch-catch” and other little activity of holding the plastic bat or kicking the football or balloon with him. But that doesn’t make me oblivious to what’s happening in the sports world, and no wonder I am ecstatic to India’s national anthem playing at the Beijing Olympics.
It was indeed exuberating to hear Sushil Kumar win bronze in 66 Kg Freestyle wrestling and even more thrilling to see Vijender Kumar hurling punches on Ecuador’s Carlos Goncora in the quarter-finals of 75kg Middleweight Boxing on Wednesday with continued lead and overpowering him ultimately to win the bout 9-7. Pessimist that I am, I was just waiting for Goncora to hit back and turn the score board around but Vijender was good throughout. Now waiting for Friday to arrive when he will meet Cuba’s Emilio Correa to define the colour of the medal he’s gonna bring back home. After Abhinav Bindra’s surprise gold hunt in 10 meter air rifle event in the Beijing Olympics I think we Indians are hungry for more.
Surprisingly, everybody is gung-ho about boxing, wrestling and shooting and Cricket is coming as an afterthought. The Indian Cricket team won over their opponent Sri Lanka, yesterday by three wickets in the second one day of the five matches one day series. I use to be a cricket buff some time ago but with the flooding of Leagues and the added “zings” which make it look like all those noisy American games, Cricket somehow grew nauseating. Certainly those new rules are taking cricket away from the game and are not helping the viewers either.
Coming back to Olympics, have to commend all those who went to Beijing coz its just not their talent for the sports that has taken them there but also their grit and determination to fight a system that hardly takes a note of their presence. Have to congratulate all those who haven’t won medals, but succeeded in making their presence felt. Apart from the known faces of Rajyavardhan Rathore – Shooting, Anju Bobby George – Long Jump, Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupati and Sania Mirza – Tennis, Sania Nehwal – Badminton, we are looking forward to performances of so many new names like Akhil Kumar, Jitendra Kumar and Dinesh Kumar – Boxing, Anup Sridhar – Badminton (and many more coz the Olympics are not over as yet).
If it isn’t raining in Beijing it will in London…
