Indian Sports Inc marches on!

I hope the point about true sporting glory has been emphatically made and we can now proceed to enjoy our journey of partnering India towards sporting greatness with an emphasis on Olympic sports . Our endeavour going forward would be to enjoy the presence of global sporting icons in the midst of our day to day lives, just like Mumbaikars do in relation to Bollywood Stars.
Our sporting heroes in the last three month period have not been a surprise.
Here is a sneak peak:

• Saina Nehwal, one of India's greatest active sportsperson already at the young age of 21, won the prestigious Indonesian Super Series ladies singles event. Saina beat 3 top-10 players enroute to the win, including 2 top chinese shuttlers which in any badminton event, let alone a Super Series event is akin to conquering Mount Everest.
  World Rank#7
  Go Saina! Don't rest before Numero Uno
• Susheel Kumar, our olympic bronze medallist, silenced the ministry shenanigans by striking gold at the German Grand Prix Freestyle & Greco Roman wrestling championship
• Gaganjeet Bhullar became the youngest Indian to win an Asian tour title when he won the Indonesia President Invitational, at the age of 21. Its been a great year for Bhullar with 4 top-10s on the tour already(including a second place) to go with the win. Qualifying for the main draw of the British Open has been the icing on the cake though
• Sandeep Sejwal became the first Indian to be in the world rankings for three events after he smashed three national records in the recently concluded FINA world championships.He is ranked 61st, 66th & 69th in the 50m,100m & 200m breastroke in the world. Compatriot Virdhawal Khade finished 59th out of 202 swimmers in the 50m freestyle while J.Agnishwar also broke the existing national record in the 200m individual memory. We take these performances to heart because at least these guys are not going there on government money to have a visit and deliver worst times than at home which used to be the case earlier.
• Joshna Chinappa won the third WISPA title of her career when she defeated home favourite Low Wee Wern in the final of the $ 16,000 NSC series event in Kuala Lumpur.
  World Rank#41
• Leander Paes was denied a 10th Grand Slam title when he and mixed doubles partner Cara Black lost in the Wimbledon Final. Paes is a former two time winner in the same event category. What a journeyman! Tributes to his fitness:)
• Sania Mirza, won a challenger title in the US. If its a stepping stone for greater glory than what she has achieved already, we will all accept this win. Otherwise its just a way to earn some pocket money in the recession. Frankly, I think she is done and dusted though

Do let me know if i've missed anything and to all my sporty friends, I hope the list above gives further indication as to what can be considered as steps towards sporting glory. A 3 nation one-day tournament win with Srilanka & West Indies(of the 90s and beyond) for company, played travelling all across India in March-April, certainly does not.

Watch Out For(WOF)!

1. World Badminton Championships-Hyderabad, August 10-16
2. World Boxing Championships-Milan, Sep 1-12

True Sporting Glory

Greetings to all who believe that having a sporting culture imbibed into the cultural ethos of this country(India) is the only way to true sporting glory.
True sporting glory?? This really needs to be defined first or at least some parameters need to be drawn. What better way than to cite examples with which we can relate to.
The Indian hockey team recently won the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia. It was a five team tournament with New Zealand(World no 7), Pakistan(World no 8), Egypt(World no 20) and the hosts Malaysia(World no 15) competing for the cup besides India(World no 11). Now, that is a sporting achievement. Sporting glory would only come when the Indian hockey team wins either the Olympic Gold, the Hockey World Cup or the Champions Trophy.
It would also be fair to say that in the unofficial national sport of cricket after the World Championship Win in 1985 in Australia where Ravi Shastri returned with the Champion of Champions accolade, there has been nothing to root for till date in the actual sport ,although much has been achieved on the administrative front with the creation of so many multi-millionaire cricketers and world class infrastructure. The test series victory against Steve Waugh's all conquering Australians after being blown off for more than half the series is the only other instance which comes to mind.
In a nut shell, in TEAM sports, true sporting glory can only be achieved by beating quality TEAMs.There are two essential ingredients in this. The opponent has to have quality and the result of the contest has to result in a WIN....very important from the sporting culture point of view as well- WIN (In India there is a tendency to glorify second place finishes, draws etc)

In individual sports it is even simpler. You simply have to WIN in an event which has the best in the world competing for the top spot. Vishwanathan Anand, Abhinav Bindra, Mary Kom, Pankaj Advani, Geeth Sethi, Michael Ferriera, Prakash Padukone, Pullela Gopichand, Dola & Rahul Bannerjee(apologies if any more world champions have been left out) are obviously miles ahead of the pack on that front, while Rajyavardhan Rathore, Sushil Kumar, Jitender Kumar, Karnan Malleswari and Leander Paes should also be given their due( ater all they WON olympic medals).
If we can all agree on the above, a little start I believe would have been made on my mission to bring about a sporting culture in this country...where we all play fair but play desperately to WIN