Asian Games 2010
The Asian Games 2010 ended on the 27th of November, it took place in Guangzhou, China. China as usual gave a captivating closing ceremony show casing their culture, state of the art infrastructure and stunning fireworks.
The medal tally as everyone by know knows had China at number 1 with 199 gold , 119 silver and 98 bronze medals giving a total of a whopping 416 medals, this isn’t as much of a shocker considering they were number one at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 with a total of 100 medals. Keeping in mind that China is the most populated country in the world they seem to be living up to their potential. So why is India so happy?
Every Indian is proud when a medal is won, gold silver or bronze. This time the winners were mostly unexpected for instance many women in athletics such as Sudha Singh for 3000m Steeplechase and Preeja Sreedharan in 10,000m Track and Bajrang Lal Takhar who won a gold medal in Rowing Men’s Single Sculls or Pankaj Advani who won a gold medal in Cue Sports Men’s English billiards singles.
India this year won a total of 14 gold, 17 silver and 33 bronze medals giving a total of 64 medals, which are 13 medals more than the 2006 Asian Games that took place in Doha, Qatar.
India however isn’t living up to their fullest potential. If population is the criteria with which we are to measure the level of potential, in that case India should be number 2, not number 6. No one can ever put the blame on the athletes as without them we as a country would be in a pitiful state, if anybody is to be blamed it is the government. People from small towns and villages have no means to train due to lack of funds, equipment or even coaches for that matter.
All the athletes that have come about recently have all done well because of their own funds and resources. They have excelled and done their country proud but have got nothing from the country in return. Even P. T. Usha who is a legend was treated like a nobody during the CWG 2010, by the OC (organizing committee), if this is how we treat our sports personalities who don’t play cricket, then in that case there is no future for any other sport in India.
There is no solution to this problem until the government doesn’t set aside certain amount of funds for various sports and set up camps all over the country with proper equipment and training facilities and infrastructure for budding athletes.
We have an untapped potential, which is even more frustrating than no potential at all.
Tags: Asian Games, Asian Games 2010, Bajrang Lal Takhar, China, Guangzhou, India, Medal Tally, Pankaj Advani, Preeja Sreedharan, Sports, Sudha Singh
