Olympic Gold Quest

Sigh. The Olympics are over.

After the grandiose Moulin Rouge style mash-up extravaganza that was served up in the closing ceremony (Jessie J performing with Queen? Really?), its time to reflect on India's participation in the games. But after 'liking' Facebook pictures of our medal winners of course :)
'Olympic Gold Quest' was one excellent program that has started reaping benefits after years of effort. This all-time high medal count should keep getting better through the games in 2014 and 2016 if only more and more corporate money flows in.

As a thriving democracy, we will never have the 'Olympic factories' that create medal winners in certain autocratic nations. I mean looking at the things they do and more, its just assuring that we are not them. Neither can we have the American/Australian model of Sports where it is tightly integrated into the University system. But better infra, improved training and better publicity will take us a long way from here. We don't need to remember Mary Kom or Sushil Kumar only every 2 or 4 years. They need media coverage and our constant support in all competitions. I mean, who even knew that the boxer lady was a 5 time world champion? Now that our wrestler hero has a few crores assured as prize money, it should encourage more talent coming into the games. He makes us proud, compared to another Sushil Kumar who is a disappointment to the offices he holds.

That said, our national sport definitely needs an overhaul. They face their own set of problems, but surely more is expected out of them. As the foreign coach put it (and it comes from a foreigner who sings the Indian national anthem, really!), many of our hockey players were merely happy being Olympians and with no fight to win. Last place in the Olympics in our national sport is a national embarrassment. On the other hand, Germany which won the hockey gold just got the job done with some sheer talent and discipline. And probably half the population in this football-crazy nation here didn't even bother to notice.

Our sportspersons need to be role models. And that will come if they give their best. I don't care if they endorse more brands of sugary aerated drinks and earn loads of money in the process.. The bottomline is - they must perform, and inspire generations to compete more.

We get it. We are not generally athletic and well-built as a race. We usually aren't half a mile tall like Phelps or Missy Franklin. We lack the endurance and stamina of the African-origin races. But certainly we should do great in areas requiring more skill - shooting, archery, badminton and table tennis (damn the Chinese!), right? Well, we did win in violent/combative areas like Wrestling, boxing, shooting et al. Gandhi would have been proud. :)

In the end, no sportsman who represents the country must EVER worry about how they would earn their livelihood when they stop competing. Ever.

But certainly we need loads of money channeled in more important places in society, right? Millions still need to be pulled out of poverty, sanitation facilities, water, electricity are the basic issues which need to be addressed first, right?
Yes, we need more money into infrastructure, but development of sports cannot be overlooked. The sense of collective pride that a nation gets through the victories is priceless, not to mention the added interests in sports and fitness that contribute to the overall health of the population.

To all our medal winners - you did great! A Silver and bronze is still one at the top, amongst the best of the best in the world. And sometimes the best ones too do not get their hands on that glittering metal.
Ask Federer and the Brazil football team.

Elect me! I'm a woman and he is black!

The American President elections - everyone knows it 'different' this time.
But why on earth do these polls need to continue for almost an year? The whole cicrus began late last year and the finals would take place in November 2008! Thats really long... I mean, within that much time, the Chinese would have cooked up a bit more of the world's share of greenhouse, Pakistanis would have killed 4 more politicians (assuming there are any more left) and 20 new bomb attacks would have been manufactured in the the Palestine-area!
Ever since the drama has started, CNN, the lone English channel on my television has been covering it 14 hours out of 24, robbing viewers like me of many more important topics - world peace and global warming, for instance! And football.
No, really! :)

I like Obama by the way.
I think its something to do with the confidence that shows on his face when he is on the stage. And its good that a colored person is coming so close to the White-House for the first time. He is somewhere between a rightist and a leftist. Besides, he isn't even completely black! The best part is that he never plays the 'Racial Card' to downplay his origins of his skin-color.
Nice.

Which reminds us of Senator clinton, who never misses out on reminding the world (and the gullible voters) that she was born with two X chromosomes. (We already know that, Ma'am!) Playing the gender card comes as easy to her as it comes to Bush on sending more troops to Iraq. Why do half of the Democrats like her so much? If she could handle her shaky marriage and kept it strong, she would probably do the same to a shaky United States, right?
You bet!
And speaking of confidence, I couldn't trace that at all on her face, which more so showcases a makeup experiment gone horribly wrong. That, topped with an pageant-like artifical smile that refuses to disappear from her powdered chins.

John McCain looks like that solid-old senior citizen who has promised his great granddaughter a seat to the White-House. But he might even end up winning the seat, just because the Republicans would probably rig the polls, or because of the Bush magic, which surprisingly has shone (and still shines) since the last 2 terms.

Poor Democrats. You should have known that the government is for the people, of the people and rigged by the people.

Speaking of rigging, the American polls are a total sham on the delight of elections! I mean, look at the Indian elections. What interesting scenarios here - rigging, violence, booth capturing, mud-slinging, back-stabbing, threatening, bribing, horse-trading, hung-parliament and what not! The candidates in the US are so diplomatically-correct, so cordial to each other, never maligning each other - so much that they make our own politicians seem like satan's offsprings!

Footnote PJ:
Why is the US-head a President, and not a Prime Minister?
Because otherwise he/she would have been called 'Sub-Prime Minister'!

:)