Beijing olympics - my two cents

Beijing Olympics concluded yesterday with an awesome closing ceremony. China put together a spectacular show, both during the ceremonies and with their performance (controversy on their gymnast's ages is a completely different story!). US performance was top-notch despite of the concerns that the country is not spending enough resources on Olympic games and American football is overshadowing most of the other sports.

What I found most inspiring about the games was the struggles which each player endures to make it to the games - winning or losing does not matter as much as representing one's country does. Each athlete, no matter where he or she is from, carries a story - be it Michael Phelps who won 8 golds in swimming or Natalie du Tiot who swam in 10 KM women marathon despite losing a leg in a motorcycle accident in 2001. What ties all these stories together is the outstanding passion, hard work and determination which each of these individuals exhibit. To me, this is the real Olympic spirit.

Coming to India's performance, we finally got our first individual gold. And as usual our politicians, companies and citizens did a great job of capitalizing on Abhinav's achievement. One month (or even less) from now these celebrations will disappear, IOA (Indian Olympic Association) will go back to hibernate and Indians will again concentrate on achievements of our cricket team. No one will talk about olympics till 2012 and then the whole cycle will repeat (with or without medals). I hope I am wrong!

Few of my friends here asked if India plans to host Olympics now that China has already done it? I am not sure what to answer - while we might have the resources to do it, unless we make our athletes more competent - we cannot risk hosting games where the host country could not even win a medal. Some of you might have heard of "project 119" - a 5-6 yr long Chinese government's project to focus on games which have the most Olympic medals (shooting, weightlifting, athletics, swimming, diving, gymnastics and rowing). We need an effort similar to this if we have to make a mark on the global arena. Hosting Olympic games comes next. It is the responsibility of each one of us in whatever capacity we can to bring about this change. India can and will host Olympics!!

Finally, here is an interesting comparison based on country's GDP and Population and not surprisingly, India is at the bottom of the list: http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/medal-count-by-size-08.html