Rio 2016: Sports Womenship

Despite the large pool of talent available, india has not been able to build a sports culture in the country, thanks to political interference, corruption and lack of accountability, reports ridhima malhotra.

- Ridhima Malhotra

Sending our largest ever Olympic contingent to Rio de Janeiro hasn’t been enough. We are an ambitious country hungry for victories and medals. We Indians like sports less for the adrenaline boost and more for the pride and glory that comes with winning. We are not fond of sportspersons per se; what we want is sports stars who we can worship. We do not necessarily appreciate the sweat and blood that is spent over many years to make a champion. We only recognise the medals and the trophies.

Qualifying for an international sporting event as prestigious and alluring as the Olympics is an achievement in itself for many sportspersons. The fact that 117 men and women from our country, the largest Indian contingent ever, qualified for the Rio Olympics points to a promising trend in Indian sports. However, the performances of our Olympians have been mediocre, barring a few exceptions. During the nerve-wracking competitions, we were disheartened to see some of them miss medals by a whisker as they stood fourth. While some put up aggressive fights, many had a not-so-confident body language. Even as Sakshi, Sindhu and Dipa have become household names after their ace performances, most people don’t even know of the others who gave their best performances but couldn’t reach the podium. For many of them, not being able to win a medal has nullified years of perseverance.