Sindhu’s heroic fight

Although P.V. Sindhu, the 21 year old ace Badminton champion from Hyderabad could win only the silver in Rio de Janeiro Olympics, yet her heroic tooth and nail fight to make it for the silver shall be remembered for long as the promising Indian woman sportsperson’s contribution to India trying to make her place in Olympics. By and large, India has not been able to make a spectacular feat in Olympics despite the country being home to 60 per cent youth below 35 years of age out of a total population of 125 million.
We have to admit that though we are the second largest populated country in the world, yet we have not been able to win the medals commensurate with our population. The youth in our country do not lag behind any people in the world in physical prowess or the capability of excelling in sports and athletics. Yet why we are hardly able to win gold or silver. This is a matter which needs to be taken up on national level. Look at China; that country won political freedom three or four years after we had won. Yet within the span of six decades, China has emerged world power not only militarily but also economically. In Olympics or in Asian Games and other sports events, China wins so many golds and surpasses even the western countries. Is it not time that we should learn from China how we can infuse the spirit of great sportsmanship among our youth and how we can develop state structure to be able to compete and win in Olympiads.
Our entire sports policy, or to be precise, the philosophy of development of sports has to be overhauled. We cannot make any achievement worth the name if we do not adopt entirely new methodology and work culture to build our sports structure. The foremost thing in this context is to tap the talent right at the level of Middle School. The identified talent needs to be groomed and developed. This is a long drawn process. It needs planning, funding, and developing without interruption and laxity. The second important aspect of the philosophy of sports in our country is that we should tap the talent in rural India. There is enormously hidden talent in our villages and towns that goes waste for the sake of proper grooming and caring at proper time. Just because our rural population cannot afford to scientifically develop the talent even if they find it in their children. Therefore the task of identifying the talent among young school going children should be left to the teachers and then there should be tehsil and district level sponsorship of the talented youth to intensify their interest in sports. The number of reserved vacancies for sportspersons should be increased so that with financial stability they can continue to develop and standardize their capacity for participation in state-wise competitions and come to the national level. This is a comprehensive plan and programme and the Ministry of Youth Development will have to draw new roadmap for the sports talented youth in the country both men and women.
We have numerous examples of youth hailing from villages and poor families who had the talent and just by freak of chance happened to be picked up by the selection agency and then inducted into sports where they performed excellently. Kapil Dev and M.S. Dhoni are two examples before us. They come from rural background but they made the nation proud. This tradition needs to be continued.
We shall be failing in our comments on the subject if we mince words while reflecting on the incompetence of some of the people who are at the helm of affairs in this area. We have gone through very disappointing phase of defamation when we hosted the Commonwealth Games in our country some years ago. The allegations of corruption, mismanagement and inefficiency dogged the entire enterprise. Even now, there are complaints of corruption, inefficiency and embezzlements in sports sector in States and at the Centre. These debilitating factors are shameful and our country needs to come out of it.
We hail our sportsmen and women who, despite many odds have, made a mark in their respective fields and earned the country pride. In particular, we are highly proud of women athletes like Sania Mirza, Sania Nehwal and Sindhu and others who have made the roadway for our younger female generation to take up the challenge and show that they are not behind anybody in the world. We salute Sindhu for being the first to win a silver and we are hopeful that she will not rest unless she has won the gold

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