-By Milan K Sinha
Finally, face-saving news
for a country of 1210 million people -and the news is about International Olympic Committee (IOC) agreeing in principle to lift the ban imposed
last year. In fact, IOC agreed to pave the way for India's return to Olympic
fold after the Indian Olympic
Association (IOA) agreed to have fresh
elections and hold another Annual General Meeting (AGM) within a month to
select their representatives.
It is still live in our memory how London 2012 Olympics Grand Finale ended with all fanfare a few
months back. India did register an
improvement in its medal tally - total
six medals- two Silver and four Bronze. India ranked 55th among the
participating countries numbering 204.
At the end of the 17 day long Gala sports event, only 85 countries had
the honour of winning at least a single medal. USA topped the medal count with
104 medals followed by China with 87 and
host Britain with 65. The Indian
players, by and large tried their best
within the well known constraints to bring laurels for the country.
Yes,
soon after the game was over, every authority and analyst took stock of the
country’s performance and registered
their view point on expected lines. No doubt, the protagonists of
Indian performance which might seem very
shameful in absolute terms, had at least following three reasons to highlight
and rejoice on the occasion based purely on comparative position:
· We doubled our medal tally from 3 in Beijing 2008 Olympics to 6 in London
2012.
· In 1996 Atlanta Olympics, India could bag only one Bronze medal whereas it
is now whooping six. To say, six
hundred per cent improvement.
· Our immediate neighbours Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal couldn’t
win even one medal in London 2012.
But, the table below showing medal count of top 15 countries in London 2012 with population of that
country would definitely provide us enough food for thought for deciding our
action plan: RIO 2016 Olympics, right
now.
S.N.
|
Name of Country
|
Gold Medal
|
Total Medals
|
Population of country
(in million)
|
1
|
U.S.A
|
46
|
104
|
312
|
2
|
China
|
38
|
87
|
1350
|
3
|
Britain
|
29
|
65
|
62
|
4
|
Russia
|
24
|
82
|
142
|
5
|
S. Korea
|
13
|
28
|
50
|
6
|
Germany
|
11
|
44
|
82
|
7
|
France
|
11
|
34
|
65
|
8
|
Italy
|
8
|
28
|
61
|
9
|
Hungary
|
8
|
17
|
10
|
10
|
Australia
|
7
|
35
|
22
|
11
|
Japan
|
7
|
38
|
128
|
12
|
Kazakistan
|
7
|
13
|
17
|
13
|
Netherland
|
6
|
20
|
17
|
14
|
Ukraine
|
6
|
20
|
46
|
15
|
Cuba
|
5
|
14
|
11
|
I hope, most of the right thinking nationalist
Indian who might not be good at playing politics (our de facto National Game) must wonder seeing the table above, why
our top ten populous as well as relatively prosperous states namely Uttar
Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil
Nadu, Rajasthan, Karnataka & Gujarat ( UP has a population of 200 million
& Gujarat 61 million) can’t compete individually with most of the top
ranking countries in the above list. Each of these states and a few more in Indian Union has the potential and also
the resources to show to the world that next forty months from now would be dedicated towards motivating, identifying
and grooming the energetic as well
as enthusiastic young population in all
possible and sincere manner for becoming one of the top ten countries of the
world in medal tally in Rio 2016 Olympics
and thereafter Olympic after Olympic.
Hope, IOA(Indian Olympic Association), Central as
well as State governments and all sports
organisations are listening.
# Published in Patna Daily.com
Will meet again with Open Mind. All the Best.
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