"Before the moment there is anticipation...after the moment there is triumph...but what matters most is what happens in that moment."

This quote is so deep and so meaningful. It gave me a feeling for a moment that I was a part of that moment. So well crafted that I could not stop liking it. It was from an old Olympics commercial.

Olympics.......that's a word which brings goosebumps on my flesh. It makes my adrenaline rush. The speed, the grit, the passion, the hunger to win, the pain, the agony, the ecstasy....and so many more aspects of human nature manifest themselves evident in such a short period of time.

The water in the eyes when you see your country's flag raise upon the central flagpost and the music of your national anthem playing is such a high drama situation. There are always statements made about the greatness of being at the Olympics, the fact that getting there itself is one of the biggest achievements. Medals hardly matter, participation does.

But not always.Being a 25 year old Indian, I have not yet had the opportunity to hear my national anthem at the olympics, ever since I was born. Why can't a nation of more than 100 million create one successful gold medal winning olympian. Why is India medal starved. What makes Indian sportsmen weaker than the other counterparts? We keep reading arguments about the lack of facilities, the lack of money, the corruption, the politics involved and the excessive importance to cricket which is a non-olympic sport. But personally I feel that all this is not the sole reason. Ethiopia, which is the poorest country in the world can produce Haile Gabriselassie and we talk about facilities and corruption. What probably is lacking is the will, not just of the authorities, but also of the athletes.


Just consider cricket. It is hard to find a kid in the country who does not know how to hold a bat! There is absolutely no shortage of resources with BCCI around. The sport has willful fan following. Yet, when the sport was introduced at the Kuala Lampur Commonwealth games, India got thrown out in the first round. Half the team was trying to mint money at the Sahara Cup in Toronto, Canada. Doesn't that raise some serious questions about the mentality.

Consider hockey. India has produced some of the finest stickflicks in the world. We produced them in the 1930s and we still produce them. But the 1930 guys brought back highest honours from any competition. They had the guts to shut the mouths of the people like Adolf Hitler who doubted Dhyanchand's skills. That was the era of the British raj and the players were military servants. They understood discipline and also how to play as a team. Is that team spirit something that lacks. Dhanraj Pillay had brilliance, Pargat Singh was one of the best hockey players the world has ever seen. Still the game in India has remained restricted to a few good players in recent times.Where has the word TEAM disappeared! Anytime Indian hockey has played as a team we have come out good. What better evidence of the fact than the Asian games in 1998 where we won the gold. But the result of the gold, 75% of the team got fired immediately after the games.At the following Olympics we got thrown out in round one. Why does this inconsistency creep in every time we play sport, especially at the time when one should be most consistent!

Our shooting team is supposed to be one of the finest in the world even though we do not have the best facilities. But the fact that our shooters get decent exposure is the strongest pro for them. The involvement of some military personnel in the sport is a plus as well. The discipline is there and it is just a matter of time before the sport ripens. But at the Olympics we fail miserably. Why? Anjali Bhagwat, Samaresh Jung, Jaspal Rana and many more fine shooters who return with bags full of metal from Asian Games and Commonwealth Games end up finishing way beyond the top three spots every time they shoot on the Olympics shooting ranges. Only a military personnel like Rajyawardhan Rathore managed to pull a brilliant trigger to glory.

Do we miss out on that edge above the others when we compete. At the Olympics only the best in the world qualify and the best of the best stand on the podium.We qualify to be among the best, but then suddenly seem so ordinary when we compete with them. Why this disparity. Anju Bobby George created waves at the World Championships in Paris and then in Athens. She had the whole nation watching her when she jumped to her personal best in the long jump. But still she had 5 more who did better, under the same conditions and at the same stadium. PT Usha came close to a bronze at Los Angeles in 1984, but still that 1/100th of a second edge was missing. We looked at it as she just missed by a whisker, but then why do we miss the point that she "missed" ? Of course no doubt she justified her quality, but then why does she just serve as an old role model with no followers to improve upon the model in the subsequent years?
Leander Paes who was nowhere in the individual ATP rankings/ seedings always was a different man when it came to playing for Team India. Be it at the Davis cup or at the Olympics, he had that talent to kill giants when it came to representing India. But once he became a professional success with Hesh Bhupathi, they seemed to commit the same flaws as all the others.The Flying Sikh Milkha Singh almost won the gold once. But actually faltered on the road to glory. Why do we tend to always falter at the ultimate moment? Why do our so called professional athletes lack the professional finishing touch that the Aussies or the Americans or the Russians or the Chinese or even the Ethiopians give to their finishing?
These are some unanswered questions that perplex me many a time. Unfortunately, it is no use even if I find the answer. The solution will be correct only when the concerned authorities check any such analysis, which will never happen, since the authorities themselves are hardly professional. So all I can do is wait for Beijing 2008 and hope that there are no new additions to the falterer list. Of course, it's good to have a few last minute falterers to show rather than not showing anything at all ! But I would rather say that there be some metal in bags this time.

I wish all the athletes luck and pray that God gives them all the determination and motivation of gaining that edge over the others. And I would like to remind them of the fact that Jana Gana Mana has not played at the games since the Moscow Olympics in 1980. The central flag post still awaits the opportunity to unfurl the tricolour.

Jai Hind.