China 51 , India 1

Beijing olympics 2008 is over but it holds a special significance for us Indians. It was the first time that an Indian bagged a gold medal in an individual category.It was the first time that India won a total of 3 medals in this version of the games and this was ,by far , the best Indian performance in Olympics. No wonder that our newly born heroes and icons are enjoying their ride so far and whole country is busy in celebrations. But in this hulabloo, we have forgotten to look or rather we deliberately did not look at other aspect of the story. CHINA. We are comapred with china in every field whatsoever : population , technology , permanent seat at the Secutity Council (we have not got one that is a different matter) blah blah blah. And indeed we do good in most of the fields but what about sports. Can we even think of competing with China in near future ,let alone beating it ? Well , to be frank , I don't think so.With the current level of training provided to our sportpersons ( leave Cricket , even that is not considered worth to be included in Olympics) and facilities given (even basic facilities such as healthy and nutritious food for wrestlers are missing) , it is a pipe dream to think of sports excellence in our country. 13 olympics medals in 108 years of Olympics history tells the entire story. All the hype created around Abhinav Bindra , Sushil Kumar and Vijender is short lived. 2 or 3 months down the line (even that is a way optimistic figure) entire country will sink in Cricket fever. Few bucks given to Olympics heroes will obviously change their lives but that won't change the sports scene in India in general.
India lacks basic infrastructure needed to brighten the future of sports. Corruption is deeply rooted in the hearts of almost all of the national and state government bodies regulating various sports.We all know what happened to our national sport , Hockey , in the reign of Mr Gill. It's time to change the mindset of the people in how they perceive non-Cricket sports .It's time politicians rise above petty politics and take some solid and revolutionary steps for the betterment of the sporting culture. It's time to privatise the sports in India. Only then we can hope of the day when Indian would be called a worldpower is sports .Only then we can see lot many of Abhinav Bindras and Vijenders and Sushil Kumars.