Stuff I wrote for my college campus newspaper - 15

Something

By Sanket Kambli

By the time this article comes out in print, our last medal hope must have jumped

her way either to the podium or nowhere. And before we all get depressed about the dismal performance of our contingent at the sporting spectacle in Greece.

I would like to say something. We all have high hopes when it comes to India’s

performance in cricket, and their skills do deserve that kind of expectation,

they don’t perform is another matter though, but that isn’t the topic of my write up.

But when we go about expecting a bunch of medals at Olympics, then I would say its

like stretching your imagination just a bit too hard. I am not a pessimist; even I would like to see India grabbing a few medals, but sometimes you got to be realistic. And the reality is that India athletes, certainly excluding a few, have a long way to go before we can entertain any serious hope of their podium finish. So it is better if we expect our athletes to improve their world rankings by gaining whatever points they can at such events, than dream about top 3 finishes. And the authorities should try and give prizes(monetary) to not to just medal winners but also who set some national record or a personal best, this probably will push them to work harder. Because I believe that if one

is regularly commended for a good performance, that person will surely try something which they themselves considered impossible, and maybe that will be a moment of biggest upsets in athletic world, when India finishes on the podium as regularly as Schumacher winning a formula one race. But don’t get all dreamy because this is one dream which will take a long time. And till then we will have to smart about the bronze in last edition of Olympics, silver in this edition, and maybe a gold in next.