The flavour of the season is the Independence day after the Olympic games, and this blog is for sports in India. Take a look around. We are not a sporting nation. I am going to list a few solutions to improve our sporting performance at the international games. Hope you can contribute too...
After school where it is mandatory to do some physical exercises, most of us drop sports in college. In my graduation batch of over 350 students, there was one long distance runner, two badminton players, few girls in the hockey team and two of us in the basketball team. While we toiled on the ground and court, the others were busy doing tuition for MBA exams, getting to know the other gender, or killing time at the cafe near college. By the time i finished my post graduation, i had stopped playing basketball completely and was running once in a blue moon. Once i started working, there was absolutely no room for sports! I am sure this is the case for most of us. We are active on the sports field till we are 18-20 yrs old and then life is 100% work. It was only a year back at work i started playing table tennis at work, and then football on few weekends and now swim regularly. Happy realisation, i must say!
(PS: Playing cricket on sunday morning doesnt count. Cricket isn't an Olympic sport.)
We don't watch sports. We don't support sports. For any performer, other than the rush from the performance, a solid high comes from the crowd support. The adulation. The fans. Those who cheer. Unfortunately, same story repeats with the annual sports day which has an packed audience. Once school is over, no one comes to cheer, no other sport meets are supported by spectators. There might be one odd wrestling meet that some politician will sponsor and get major footfalls. Or like the annual football tournament in Kolhapur.
The pressure to grow up is another killer. I remember my grandfather asking me to stop playing and help in domestic chores - fill and ferry buckets of water. My father told me to act my age - and focus on studies, get a job, start working. There are hundreds of my friends who were good at sports in school. We even had a senior at school who ran 100mts under 13 secs. I can proudly say that each one of my batch mates has represented the school / state in west zone and national level in various team sports, track n field games. As of now, except for those in the Armed forces, i wonder if any of them even has a pair of running shoes! Expectation to be "grown up" and "act our age" unfortunately equals to giving up sports.
For a vast majority the urbanisation of the last decade has led to disappearance of playgrounds. There was a time when the grounds were walking distance from home. Now with buildings running for kilometers together, there are no open spaces. We once went to play at a ground nearby. If you are fielding at long on, you are next to the wicket keeper for some other chaps playing cricket. You don't know which direction the ball is going to hit you from! Our urban planners need to push for some policy change where open spaces, where people can play some sport, pursue some game.
There are several issues plaguing our sports, and a lot of them are non-sports related. They are cultural problems and hopefully we can address them holistically. And please take a break and be little objective before foolishly forwarding smses that talk about Olympic performance of 1.2 billion strong country. Criticism ever helps. Only those who are internationally accomplished have the right to comment on the performance of the athletes.
Gold medals will follow. Let us start playing first! So we can understand the sport, appreciate the sport.
After school where it is mandatory to do some physical exercises, most of us drop sports in college. In my graduation batch of over 350 students, there was one long distance runner, two badminton players, few girls in the hockey team and two of us in the basketball team. While we toiled on the ground and court, the others were busy doing tuition for MBA exams, getting to know the other gender, or killing time at the cafe near college. By the time i finished my post graduation, i had stopped playing basketball completely and was running once in a blue moon. Once i started working, there was absolutely no room for sports! I am sure this is the case for most of us. We are active on the sports field till we are 18-20 yrs old and then life is 100% work. It was only a year back at work i started playing table tennis at work, and then football on few weekends and now swim regularly. Happy realisation, i must say!
(PS: Playing cricket on sunday morning doesnt count. Cricket isn't an Olympic sport.)
We don't watch sports. We don't support sports. For any performer, other than the rush from the performance, a solid high comes from the crowd support. The adulation. The fans. Those who cheer. Unfortunately, same story repeats with the annual sports day which has an packed audience. Once school is over, no one comes to cheer, no other sport meets are supported by spectators. There might be one odd wrestling meet that some politician will sponsor and get major footfalls. Or like the annual football tournament in Kolhapur.
The pressure to grow up is another killer. I remember my grandfather asking me to stop playing and help in domestic chores - fill and ferry buckets of water. My father told me to act my age - and focus on studies, get a job, start working. There are hundreds of my friends who were good at sports in school. We even had a senior at school who ran 100mts under 13 secs. I can proudly say that each one of my batch mates has represented the school / state in west zone and national level in various team sports, track n field games. As of now, except for those in the Armed forces, i wonder if any of them even has a pair of running shoes! Expectation to be "grown up" and "act our age" unfortunately equals to giving up sports.
For a vast majority the urbanisation of the last decade has led to disappearance of playgrounds. There was a time when the grounds were walking distance from home. Now with buildings running for kilometers together, there are no open spaces. We once went to play at a ground nearby. If you are fielding at long on, you are next to the wicket keeper for some other chaps playing cricket. You don't know which direction the ball is going to hit you from! Our urban planners need to push for some policy change where open spaces, where people can play some sport, pursue some game.
There are several issues plaguing our sports, and a lot of them are non-sports related. They are cultural problems and hopefully we can address them holistically. And please take a break and be little objective before foolishly forwarding smses that talk about Olympic performance of 1.2 billion strong country. Criticism ever helps. Only those who are internationally accomplished have the right to comment on the performance of the athletes.
Gold medals will follow. Let us start playing first! So we can understand the sport, appreciate the sport.
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