See you in London

It's time to say farewell to the summer Olympic games for another four years till London in 2012. Despite my scepticism about the Olympic movement since Atlanta '96, I have to admit this was a great event.

I have no comments to make on politics, human rights or Beijing's notorious air quality, but instead I want to make special mention of the athletes who made it memorable for me.

I've already mentioned my top four in previous posts: Abhinav Bindra, Sushil Kumar, Vijender Kumar and Usain Bolt, so I will pass over them. Here are the others, in alphabetical order:

Rebecca Adlington (GB, Swimming): The Brits are a pretty miserable lot when it comes to swimming. They can row and sail better than most nations, but anything involving actually getting in to the water is a different story. Then came Adlington, who shocked everyone by winning the 400m freestyle which wasn't even her pet event. That was the 800m, which she won by breaking Janet Evans' 19 year old world record. Apparently she was motivated by a promise of Jimmy Choo shoes by her mother if she won. Must be a girl thing.

Kirsty Coventry (Zimbabwe, Swimming): Zimbabwe is a nation in terrible economic shape. In July 2008 had an inflation rate of 2.2 million percent. That's no laughing matter, even if you say that like Dr. Evil. The country's white community has been systematically targetted by the government resulting in terrible racial tension. For Coventry to be able to retain her Olympic gold medal and have a truly cross-over appeal in her country is amazing.

Chris Hoy (GB, Cycling): The leader of Great Britain's dominant track cycling team, The Real McHoy became the first Brit to win three gold medals at a single Games since 1908. And this was after his pet event (the 1 km time trial) was dropped from the Beijing slate.

Javier Mascherano (Argentina, Football): An incredibly biased entry here, Liverpool's Mascherano became the first Argentinian to win Olympic gold medals in successive Olympics. I believe it's Liverpool's first Olympic gold medal.

Rohullah Nikpai (Afghanistan, Taekwondo): Nikpai won a bronze medal in the men's 58 kg even in Taekwondo. That was Afghanistan's first medal in the summer Olympics...ever. And considering his country's tortured history during his lifetime--Nikpai was a refugee in Iran as a teenager due to the violence in his country--Nikpai's feat is all the more amazing.

Rebecca Romero (GB, Cycling): 2004 Olympic silver medallist in rowing, 2008 Olympic gold medallist in cycling. Now that is a pretty good career switch.



MY ATHLETE OF BEIJING 2008:

When Baron de Coubertin founded the modern Olympic games in the 1890s, he gave the famous maxim: "The important thing is not to win, but to take part."

I don't think anyone fulfils this better than the 16th placed finisher in the women's 10k Open Water swim, Natalie du Toit, South Africa flag-bearer at the opening ceremony. Read her story. Or just look at the thousand words below:



Any questions?

Major success

Major props to Vijender Kumar, who, by winning bronze in boxing (middleweight), gave India its most successful Olympics ever, with one gold and two bronzes.

Yes, our standards are pretty low.

This is just Usain!

I was so strong for nearly 12 days. My proud record of not having watched a single second of the Olympics was going strong. I was confident of lasting all 16 days without going near the TV.

Let me clarify here and now that I am following the results on the Internet, but I am not watching any of the action. If you had to watch them on Doordarshan Sports, one of India's insipid government-run TV channels, you'd avoid watching them, too. An Indian boxer entered the semis in his event yesterday, and he was interviewed by Doordarshan. It was so interminably dull and boring that we should use that interviewer as a tactical weapon: have him interview our opponents before the game and lull them to sleep. I'm telling you, we'd be unbeatable. (Incidentally, the slick sports channels show almost nothing but cricket, football and WWE wrestling. Millions of Asians think that pro-wrestling is America's national sport!)

So, I was reading the BBC's Live Olympic Text Updates yesterday when I saw that the final of the Men's 200 metres started at 19:50 Indian time. It was 19:45. Five minutes to Usain "Lightning" Bolt-time. I hadn't seen his 100 metres romp over the weekend (well, I was on a train just then), but just the reports of the show he put on that night made me regret on missing out. So I made an exception and went to the living room and turned on the television. (Thankfully, although the action is shown on Doordarshan, the commentators are not provided by them. They re-broadcast some Australian feed, which means the commentators are worth a listen.)

The athletes were in the starting blocks when I turned on the TV. Ten seconds later, the race was over for all intents and purposes, and I was left laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. Bolt just stormed away from the rest of the field. The others could have caught a fish in the desert sooner than catch the Jamaican. Bolt duly broke the legendary Michael Johnson's 12-year old world record, becoming the first man to win both sprints at the Olympics in world record time.

The best part of the whole deal? While on his goofy victory lap (at one point he did his version of the Funky Chicken), Bolt was serenaded by the crowd/PA system singing "Happy Birthday" to him. The phenomenon turned 22 today.

Those of you who really know me will appreciate the magnitude of what I am about to say.

Usain Bolt is...awesome.



PS: The last time I was this impressed by a sprinter was Ben Johnson in Seoul in 1988. Please let this be nothing like that.

Photo of the Olympics

This is Sushil Kumar, who won a bronze medal for India in the 66 kg freestyle wrestling competition in Beijing yesterday. Isn't this a great photo? It was on the front page of our newspaper this morning and I can't get it out of my mind. Just look at the mixture of joy and disbelief on Sushil's face. Wonderful.

Bindra Redux

PS: The gold medallist is all right. He has his own blog on blogspot.

Finally!

Ok, so this is another Olympic blog post, but I can justify this one.

Earlier this morning, Abhinav Singh Bindra of India won the gold medal in the Mens 10m Air Rifle competition at the Beijing Olympics.

Woo-hoo!

It only took 112 years, but India finally has an individual gold medal in the Olympics Games. As in ever. To put that into perspective, Michael Phelps will win more individual gold medals this week than India has in history.

For a country of 1.1 billion (and perhaps another billion during the span of the modern Olympics), India really is a pretty miserable sporting nation.

So, take a bow, Mr. Bindra. Your nation thanks you, and salutes you.

PS: Take a look at photo of the guy. He looks more like a mathematics professor than an Olympic gold medallist, doesn't he?

08.08.08 8:00 pm

And now...my first (and possibly last) blog on the Olympic Games.

Are they back?

I don't know about you, dear reader, but I had my fill of the Olympics by No. 5 (for me) in Barcelona in 1992. Atlanta in '96 was putrid (I don't care what anyone says, the cauldron for the Olympic flame still looks like an empty fries container from a far-too-well-known fast food chain), Sydney was acceptable because of Cathy Freeman, and I honestly don't think I watched a minute of Athens in 2004.

So what went wrong with the old Citius Altius Fortius shindig?

Well, for one thing, it's too darn big. There are too many sports for which the Olympics is not the biggest honour (basketball, football and tennis to name just three), and they are just bloating the whole event.

And while it seems great that the best professionals in these sports are at the Olympics, I'm pretty certain that the players' clubs, who actually pay their wages, are not best pleased. FC Barcelona went to court to try to prevent their best player, Lionel Messi, from taking part in Beijing. And while they haven't said much in public, I don't think the Cleveland Cavaliers or Liverpool FC manager Rafa Benitez would be best pleased if LeBron James or Javier Mascherano tore an ACL or something.

If the Olympics really want me back (and with an estimated worldwide television audience in excess of three billion, I'm guessing they can live without me), they need to heed the advice of the late, great Waylon Jennings and "get back to the basics of [life]".

Off with tennis, football and pro basketball. Keep the Olympics for the gymnasts, the swimmers, the athletes and the canoeists. To the latter group, the Olympics is the be-all and end-all of their careers.

Having said that, I watched about 10 minutes of the Opening Ceremony while having dinner. The athletes were entering the stadium, country-by-country, in a seemingly random order. The BBC and CNN both state that the order is according to how many strokes it takes to write the country's name in Chinese script, but it baffles me how you can write Trinidad and Tobago in fewer strokes than Estonia in any language. China always has been a bit of a mystery, hasn't it?