Jul 27, 2012

The Olympics, 1996 to 2008…

Sports are back and I’m back into the form which I almost lost these days!

London must be the most scintillating city now. As the curtain is about to rise for one more time for the world’s biggest sports event, I wish all the players and their coaches a very happy Olympics ahead.

I’ve not paid much attention to the Olympics previous times. First games I remember were the 1996 Atlanta ones, hosted by the United States, in which the Indian Tennis ace, Leander Peas, won an Individual Bronze medal in lawn tennis, the only medal India bagged. Well I remember answering this question in one of the quiz competition held at school. That age was of course not an age where you get inspired by the sport, rather it was the age that would take winning the country’s whole and sole attention as a passionate imagination.

The Sydney Olympics in 2000 were all overshadowed by the EAMCET preparation and the extra care of the Intermediate colleges. I did not even know that something of Olympics or of that sort was going on in the world. Karanam Malleswari proudly won the bronze for India which I got to know only from the crazy repeated telecasts of TV and news channels during my vacation.

After Athens Olympics in 2004, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore was the hero of the nation as TV channels went on showing him up everywhere possible with a gun in hand. He appeared as a super hero from the Indian defense services. United Stated lead the way with a century medals and topped the table. Michale Phelps, the golden guy of the pool, was the cynosure of all most all discussions on sports on TV.

The Beijing 2008 was a wonderful experience with the Indian golden gun boy, Abhinav Bindra, won the first Individual gold for India. That was the first time ever in an individual event Indian national anthem was played on the world’s biggest podium. Two more bronzes, one in boxing and other in wrestling, came our way and added to the celebrations. I’m yet to read ‘The Shot at History’, a book written by Abhinav Bindra himself. That was the first time I kept wondering what it would take to stand as calm as Bindra on the podium with the national anthem running in the back ground. Probably, it takes the stableness of a player to win big shots.

Post on the London games, 2012, to follow.

2 comments:

Jack said...

Pramoda,

Statistics well told.

Take care

Shriti said...

:)