The 2012 Olympics Thread

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 10 Aug 2012 23:58

Yogeshwar's schedule is out now. Has a very tough draw. Will be hard to get a medal

SBajwa · Post by **SBajwa** » 11 Aug 2012 00:12

Afghanistan got a Bronze in Taekwondo!

ShyamSP · Post by **ShyamSP** » 11 Aug 2012 01:26

SBajwa wrote:we will end with 0-1-3

I agree!! in lieu of gold medal last time we got silver and an extra bronze!! no more medals for us.

Pathetic performance by pseudo-secular India with all sports ministers at central and state levels.

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 11 Aug 2012 02:02

Bahrain took a bronze in 1500m...The runner is from Ethiopia.. Looks like Mullahs are also importing athletes from Africa to represent them

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 11 Aug 2012 02:32

Imported athletes are nothing new to the Middle East. KSA, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar all have done that, and not just with African runners; former Chinese women's world chess champ Zhu Chen now plays for Qatar.

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 11 Aug 2012 06:16

Looks like we have several 6'4 6'3 swimmers on roster... But whats surprising is they are much slower than their counterparts from US, Europe, Japan, China etc.. Is it lack of proper technique or Genetics ?

Looking at the way Asians are dominating in Swimming, Our guys can't be too far off right ? Any thoughts ?

MurthyB · Post by **MurthyB** » 11 Aug 2012 06:27

kshatriya wrote: Looking at the way Asians are dominating in Swimming, Our guys can't be too far off right ? Any thoughts ?

Because our guys they aren't juicing?

saip · Post by **saip** » 11 Aug 2012 06:37

kshatriya wrote:Looks like we have several 6'4 6'3 swimmers on roster... But whats surprising is they are much slower than their counterparts from US, Europe, Japan, China etc.. Is it lack of proper technique or Genetics ?

Looking at the way Asians are dominating in Swimming, Our guys can't be too far off right ? Any thoughts ?

Technique and good coaches. Do our swimmers shave their entire body? And what type of clothes do they wear, the high tech type or just the regular cotton wear?

Fidel Guevara · Post by **Fidel Guevara** » 11 Aug 2012 07:25

The USA-China medals race was expected, but UK is the real surprise. Their system has become a lot more centralized in recent years, and less dependent on individual talent working with individual coaches in athletic clubs (as in the US).

Goes to show that the central command & control "4 year plan" method does get medals, all things being equal.

As contrast, I would compare UK medals with Australia and Canada (where the sports scene is much more laissez faire, and they also have almost the same genetics).

Fidel Guevara · Post by **Fidel Guevara** » 11 Aug 2012 07:36

National strategy to get Olympic medals:

UK - Government controlled/funded training programs, with central planning
China - Same as UK, plus with earlier identification of talent, and more rigorous training
USA - wide sports base, free market identifying talent and providing incentives to do better
Jamaica, Kenya, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan - single minded focus on events where they have fundamental advantages

Learnings for India - where do we have fundamental advantages? Popular games of skill such as hockey (until recently). Traditional sports such as archery, wrestling, boxing. Though these are "traditional sports" only in the NE and Punjab/Haryana belt.

The easiest approach would be a more rigorous centralized "4 year plan" type of program, but with active participation from the private sector. It should be lucrative to win medals, and this won't happen until the general public treats people such as Mery Kom as an idol, as much as any average kirketer.

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 11 Aug 2012 07:52

Hand over the sport ministry to Army with central govt funding

saip · Post by **saip** » 11 Aug 2012 08:00

Mea Culpa. Obviously the high tech suits are out in swimming and records are still broken.

Link

And now I find the pool is high tech. When will India get such a pool so that our swimmers can practice? It is like the astro turf all over again.

Link

sum · Post by **sum** » 11 Aug 2012 08:04

The USA-China medals race was expected, but UK is the real surprise. Their system has become a lot more centralized in recent years, and less dependent on individual talent working with individual coaches in athletic clubs (as in the US).

Was thinking the same....UK has done extraordinarily well this time ( and i dont think it is due to home advantage alone)

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 11 Aug 2012 08:35

apparently 2 hrs of physical sports / week is compulsory in all UK schools. this means swimming, running or such not drills or dancing. PM Cameron just walked into a controversy saying some schools are trying to meet that mark using bollywood dancing classes as a filler....though he has been criticized I agree with him - given people esp indic girls an opening and they will slip away from hard physical activity.....pushing yourself hard means going out there and doing things, not sitting in a AC classroom practising dance moves....

a lot of indic men are starting to catch up to the goras in height and strength though our bones tend not to be so heavy duty...but the comparison of young upper middle indic women and the goris is truly PATHETIC like maybe 1 in 5000 will match....stick thin chicken legs, starved looking flanks showing off jutting ribs like a drought stricken animal, zero speed, weak in strength...only a certain % of rural girls who eat enough and do physical work tend to have the look of potential sportsmen.....same economic strata in west will have a lot of meaty girls who play sports like hockey, swimming, tennis, running, football, volleyball, cycling and gym regularly.

where are our sarah hammer's and ranomi kromowidjojo. I thought ranomi of mixed dutch javan surinamese parentage has a partculary telling beauty...a confluence of 3 noble bloodlines.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 11 Aug 2012 08:36

sum wrote:^^ As i had thought, every sport where we had been bit hyped and were talking of multiple medals, we have come a cropper.

So, i think we will end with 0-1-3 . Hope that Sushil and/or Yogeshwar prove me wrong

that's a little unfair.
archery, I don't think anyone expected multiple medals, at least I did not.
shooting, we got 2, even though performance was worse than expected it wasn't a complete disappointment.
boxing, a host of poor decisions but 2 came within a match of bronze. in addition there's MK's bronze in a category 2 steps above her usual.

any other sport where people talked of multiple medals for us ?

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 11 Aug 2012 09:19

^^^ Preolympic Talk in India Media made the following predictions

Sure Medals :
Archery Individual, Archery Team
Boxing - Shiva Thapa,Vikas Krishnan, Vijender, Mary Kom (Strangely Sanghwan, Devendro were the standouts)
Shooting - Shagun, Ronjan Sodhi, Abinav, Manavjit, Gagan ( Vijay was never predicted )
Badminton - (Doubles Team - Jwala etc There was always the talk of Saina not crossing Yihan)
Wrestling (atleast 2 )

Strangely all the most hyped ones were the most disappointing ones. May be Indians can't stand Media pressure ?

vera_k · Post by **vera_k** » 11 Aug 2012 09:33

Or more like DDM forgot INC high command cannot confer an Olympic medal unlike Padma awards.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 11 Aug 2012 09:47

DPR korea and Cuba have put in a good show with 4-0-2 and 3-3-4. neither are blessed with huge amt of money but seem to have natural talents / work hard.
kazakhstan whose population is around 16mil is another achiever with 6-0-4...maybe their president cum strongman nursultan nazarbayev who has been splashing oil money on big projects is funding sports well too.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 11 Aug 2012 09:58

kshatriya, if so, then those DDM clearly had no idea about sports.

the women's archery team was hamstrung due to the absence of the experienced dola banerjee. (@ Suraj, AFAIK she is out due to an injury, not failing to qualify) I did not expect more than one medal from it this time.

boxing, I expected 3, vijender, mary kom and one from the rest. clearly, simple probability says that not all your boxers will make it.

shooting, expected 3. gagan, bindra and one from the rest.

badminton/tennis : one in all. didn't expect any in tennis after the fiasco.

----------------------------

one very concerning point is the utter lack of desi match officials in any sports, even in cricket which we dominate. no umps in the elite panel where even pakis and SL have a few.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 11 Aug 2012 10:19

Thanks RahulM.

Reg swimmers and height, while many are in the 6'3 range, it's not a requisite to be a champion. Most of the Japanese are SDRE height. Kosuke Kitajima is 5'9-5'10, as is Ryosuke Irie. They outswam plenty of folks almost a foot taller. It's a combination of physiological ability and training.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 11 Aug 2012 11:13

not just japanese but some other folks like janet evans and kristina egerszegi have proved that you dont have to be 6' though I would agree height is a advantage in the short sprints upto 100m.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 11 Aug 2012 11:31

Singha wrote:but the comparison of young upper middle indic women and the goris is truly PATHETIC like maybe 1 in 5000 will match....stick thin chicken legs, starved looking flanks showing off jutting ribs like a drought stricken animal, zero speed, weak in strength...

Sad but true. Had a recent aaphice discussion on that with 3 SDRE wimmens tagged behenji, mata-ji & devi-ji.

The stick thin chicken legs is especially noticeable in SDRE wimmens - that and the sight of wandering around in the gym indulging in gupshup interspersed by a few unenthusiastic liftings of 5lb dumbbells.

SandeepA · Post by **SandeepA** » 11 Aug 2012 11:36

Let me indulge..
Name the most populated country not to have won a single medal?

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 11 Aug 2012 11:43

Just watched some of the BMX racing events at the Olympics. I can't believe how the goras have made this into an Olympic sport. Seriously, a 40-second obstacle course with a kiddie bike ? How hard can it be for us to get a bunch of youngsters to pedal their legs off in this ?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 11 Aug 2012 11:46

olympic sport inclusion has become TV driven, and pathetic attempts to attract the x-games demographic.....plus euro traditions like dressage wherein we have natty gentlemen dressed up in hats and horsing around.

0 medals - easy - TSP

Indonesia has got 2.

Khan has done some late damage to Cheen H&D by surging ahead in the medal count...the gap is a bit too wide now to claw back in the one day remaining.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 11 Aug 2012 11:50

Actually the answer to SandeepA's question would be the land of Shakib al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal . TSP has won medals before. BD never has.

Deans · Post by **Deans** » 11 Aug 2012 15:01

Rahul M wrote: one very concerning point is the utter lack of desi match officials in any sports, even in cricket which we dominate. no umps in the elite panel where even pakis and SL have a few.

True, The lack of any Indian representation among the judging officials is even more disconcerting than our performance. The lack of homegrown qualified referees (and coaches) will be a bigger constraint then funding/facilities, for future events. No wonder we cant figure out, (let alone influence) the scoring system in Boxing.

Apart from what we got, I personally expected a medal in women's archery and an additional medal in boxing and shooting.
A medal in tennis was possible, but for the selection fiasco.

Also did not expect such a terrible performance from our hockey team and athletes (barring Irfan and Krishna Poonia, none came
near their personal best).

Deans · Post by **Deans** » 11 Aug 2012 15:18

There's been a lot of lot of the Chinese system of producing medals and some self pity over the fact that we cant emulate them.
Actually, I don't think the Chinese system is successful at all.
On a `Medals per million' basis, even among Asian countries, China is far behind S.Korea and Japan.
If we look at Asian/African countries with a comparable income/std of living, China is still below Iran, North Korea, Kazakhstan, South Africa
& Kenya. Getting 1 medal for every 15 million people (assuming they end with 90), is a poor return on their massive investment.

Similarly, Russia/Ukraine/Belarus (using the communist /USSR system of massive state intervention in sports) have averaged 1 medal for 2.5 million people, whereas West Europe has an average of 1 medal for 1 million. (I've listed West Europe as a whole, to remove the effect of small populations, that result in a Hungary/Denmark/Holland averaging 2 / million).

Our existing system can deliver, if the mismanagement is reduced and if those biologically able to participate in competitive sports (adequate standards of nutrition/ health/education) which is probably about 15% of our population, are encouraged to do so.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 11 Aug 2012 15:26

interesting pov now that you put it that way.

but averaging a good number of medals across a wide range of sports across a large population base (india, china) is also a challenge in management terms. ie the scaling problem is there for large and fairly unruly nations like us.

eg UK - from center of london, most of the major population areas around 3-4 hrs by a fast train or bus, so they can afford to build one uber facility, centralize everything and still let people go home on weekends or holidays fairly easily. suppose we setup a high altitude runners camp in ooty and some guy from itanagar , arunachal makes it .... first she would have a 7 hr bus journey to BLR, then a 3 day train journey to guwahati, then a overnight bus journey to itanagar. ie. they would be able to go home maybe once or twice a year. money is not enough to let them fly home. neither we can afford the chinese method of nearly kidnapping people at age 4 and then feeding/grooming/beating them into shape to be superstars by mid teenage with very little contact with their biological parents.

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 11 Aug 2012 15:28

LIVE OLYMPICS: Archers insulted Limba: Source:

India's archery coach Limba Ram made a quiet exit from the national team not just because of the country's dismal Olympic performance but also after being allegedly insulted by his top wards Deepika Kumari and Jayanta Talukdar, who denied the accusation.

Deans · Post by **Deans** » 11 Aug 2012 15:33

As a starting point to improve our overall attitude to sports and fitness, all schools that do have basic facilities, should have a basic sports programme, passing of which should be as important as in regular subjects. This can simply comprise:
1. Basic athletic ability (track & field, or swimming) - which improves fitness for a range of other sports AND
2. A sport other than cricket (hockey, football, boxing, wrestling) None of these require expensive equipment and they will provide the large
base necessary if we have to produce an assembly line of world class boxers/wrestlers, or simply improve our pathetic standard in football &
hockey.
Participation can be incentivised by linking progression in (2), to college admission. (which would mean inter-school/ inter-state competition, in these events, that is currently almost non existent.

A tax on cricket will more than provide the funds for 10,000 schools to so this (a 10% tax on all tickets/TV rights/advertising) will provide 1000 crore /year or 10 lacs/school per year.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 11 Aug 2012 15:47

we duly lost to SA today and finished in dead last position in hockey.

I have not watched indian hockey much after my teenage....and neither have I been fulminating as to why it ought to be our national game still (when very few play it)...but comparing todays players to yesterdays lot of zafar iqbal, mohd shahid, mervyn fernandes, MP Singh, Pargat singh, Thoiba singh, Sommaiya....the std of gameplay - stickwork, trapping, combination moves, pressing up in midfield itself seems to have gone down sharply.....those days only Aus, Netherland, germany used to beat us regularly using their superiority in penalty corner conversions....in field play we used to hold our own against anyone but the fleet footed Aus - the legendary rick charlesworth teams. we used to dismiss teams like arg, spain, Soko, eng, malaysia to whom we routinely lose now. ..I dont think NZ and SA were even in the picture back then.

we just dont have the players anymore for open field play, penalty corners we can always fix by special training of a couple guys but this is like India -vs- Germany in football...we get run off our feet and lack in all technical aspects of ball control and co-ordination vs the others.

its not just a fitness or astro turf issue or a funding issue. thats a fig leaf. even if we have the ball we cant do much with it.

we have no farther to fall. the team is aimlessly running around wasting time. its best like Noko we do some soul searching, retreat within our defensive perimeter for a while and think through what exactly is needed in terms of human resources to show our faces to the world again . naak kat gya and the ghosts of past greats must be unhappy with this. when we come out next time, we need to salvage some H&D for sure.

Deans · Post by **Deans** » 11 Aug 2012 15:48

Singha wrote:interesting pov now that you put it that way.

but averaging a good number of medals across a wide range of sports across a large population base (india, china) is also a challenge in management terms. ie the scaling problem is there for large and fairly unruly nations like us.

eg UK - from center of london, most of the major population areas around 3-4 hrs by a fast train or bus, so they can afford to build one uber facility, centralize everything and still let people go home on weekends or holidays fairly easily. suppose we setup a high altitude runners camp in ooty and some guy from itanagar , arunachal makes it .... first she would have a 7 hr bus journey to BLR, then a 3 day train journey to guwahati, then a overnight bus journey to itanagar. ie. they would be able to go home maybe once or twice a year. money is not enough to let them fly home. neither we can afford the chinese method of nearly kidnapping people at age 4 and then feeding/grooming/beating them into shape to be superstars by mid teenage with very little contact with their biological parents.

True Singha, However, even with China, a 40% of their golds are concentrated in diving/ TT/Badminton. We need to choose our sports intelligently (while lobbying in a Chanakian manner for diving/TT to be dropped, since no other country wins

).

For e.g. in Shooting/Archery/Boxing/wrestling/Athletics, it would be enough to triple the number of world class facilities we have, to ensure proximity to the major population centres producing athletes for those disciplines. Funding can be managed. For e.g.
if 3 centres of excellence have to be set up (assuming each of the above sports has 1 currently), have SAI run 1, the Army run the second (as they do in shooting and boxing) and a corporate sponsor a third (like Tata's for archery).

ManjaM · Post by **ManjaM** » 11 Aug 2012 16:21

krishnan wrote:Hand over the sport ministry to Army with central govt funding

The defense forces already support local sports activities by making their facilities available when requested for through correct channels. I have used ASC, Bangalore facilities multiple times in the past.

Ardeshir · Post by **Ardeshir** » 11 Aug 2012 17:40

Yogeshwar Dutt just win his round. He was down 0-2, but came back beautifully!

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 11 Aug 2012 18:28

SandeepA wrote:Let me indulge..
Name the most populated country not to have won a single medal?

The Bhooka-nanga-deshis?

Comer · Post by **Comer** » 11 Aug 2012 18:39

Deans wrote: Participation can be incentivised by linking progression in (2), to college admission. (which would mean inter-school/ inter-state competition, in these events, that is currently almost non existent.

This is important.
In massaland, isn't college tuition being high and in turn, giving out scholarship lead to people getting interested in sports? Their volunteer army also gets its recruits due to this, I guess.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 11 Aug 2012 18:47

Here's why our Hockey Team has sucked so bad. They need to have more ahem-ahem.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/10/health/se ... ?hpt=hp_t2

sum · Post by **sum** » 11 Aug 2012 19:03

And now Yogeshwar bites the dust 3-0 against a Russian

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 11 Aug 2012 19:06

^^^ Our Wrestlers are just not good... Period... The same mistake being repeated match after match...

Not sure if this boils down to a specific training method.... Frustrating to see them lose Clinches...The easiest strategy being employed against Indians is to take the first game to Clinch and grab the points