The 2012 Olympics Thread

[Dipanker]

Meanwhile, Birtannia marches onto 62 medals with 28 gold

After all events and analysis and joy and heartbreak and "we came THIS close" recriminations coming from 200 nations, immigration-friendly capitalist Anglo-Saxon nations top the chart (88 Gold and 235 total medals from 438 million people), with the 1.4 billion people controlled by a Nazi-esque sports machine acting as a keeda. Just as the USSR and GDR were a keeda for 40 years, this keeda shall also (eventually) pass into the dustbin of history.

One or two talented youths identified early and given special coaching will do more for our medal count, than all of BRF presenting the most well-thought-out and cogent analyses. Sorry for the downbeat tone, but now I'll go back to kirket. I am tired of doing my Olympics research and analysis every evening.

Cheers to all, and congrats to our valiant medal winners.

The USSR may be history but the erstwhile soviet states combined together haven't done too bad afterall. If you add up the medals they still finished first with 45 gold, 42 silver, and 69 bronze. Overall they got 52 medals more than USA!

4 Russian Fed 24 25 33 82
12 Kazakhstan 7 1 5 13
14 Ukraine 6 5 9 20
23 Belarus 3 5 5 13
30 Azerbaijan 2 2 6 10
39 Georgia 1 3 3 7
47 Uzbekistan 1 0 3 4
49 Latvia 1 0 1 2
63 Estonia 0 1 1 2
75 Moldova 0 0 2 2
79 Tajikistan 0 0 1 1

Thus the USSR may be long gone, but the sporting tradition in all erstwhile states is very much alive and this time you can't point finger on them either for having a commie regime of training!

[SBajwa]

wrestling used to be a favorite game in Indian villeges.

and Wrestling (Kushti) is so old sport in India that Buddhist martial arts like Judo/Karate/Taekwondo even Kabaddi have come out of its its few specified "Daev Paench" techniques and making rules around them.

We use to have couple of good athletes in Greco-Roman style Wrestling but it is good to see that we are going back to basics and sticking to our strength (Free Style Kushti Wrestling).

[KJo]

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 2#p1323592

Holy Moly

[KJo]

‘We chase medals, not women’

This is one medal which was just not possible had it not been for the involvement of increasing corporate support in Indian sport.

Just a month after the Beijing Games Yogeshwar Dutt tore two of the three main ligaments that hold the knee together in a wrestling trials bout. He lost 70% of the stability in his left leg.

Back from the brink
Doctors in India told him that forget wrestling, he may well end up walking with a limp for the rest of his life. Forget limping, the man just strutted to a bronze. But none of this would have been possible had it not been for the support of the Mittal Champions Trust.

“We sent him to South Africa for knee reconstruction surgery by Dr Andrew Devlieg — the best in the business. He was there for eight months,” reveals Manisha Malhotra, the administrator of the Trust funded by steel magnate LN Mittal to help our athletes in getting that crucial extra edge that so often defines the line between medal and also-ran.

[sum]

Boxing: Improve training systems. Sandhu is a legend as a coach, but still old school. I don't agree with his 'north Indians are aggressive but not smart, southies are smart but lack killer instinct' silliness. These mindsets need to go. He's retiring after these games. I hope the newer coaches teach versatility to deal with new scoring systems, and help the 5 boxers we have who are all 19-20 now, to at least AG medaling standard.

Actually, Sandhu-ji seems to be back-pedalling now and so doubt if he will retire.

Btw, i agree about boxing being bit behind in training since IMO, it was the biggest letdown these games for India ( refreeing notwithstanding). 0 out of 6 boxers getting into the semis is a very, very poor conversion rate indeed meaning we have the levels to get into Oly qualifying but then lack the skills to go the distance from there.

In women's side, Mery will anyways not be around for 2016 so unsure if we will be able to repeat a mdeal in Women's boxing.

[venkat_r]

Pretty good showing, 6 medals!! Much better than I expected.

Seems like sponsorships are working well with Badminton, Wresling, shooting, boxing and Archery are getting getting good focus.

Rather than wait for any starts to come up, two areas where some grass root improvement is needed is in swimming and in Athletics. Getting the kids to pursue these two areas to improve better health.

Weightlifting, vollyball and few other games do have some interest, but still seems like headed in the right direction.


Wow! 6 Olympic medals!! Time to celebrate.

[AdityaM]

The group of USA women medal winners alone would be standing third in the overall medal tally as a country!

[ArmenT]

I found the opening ceremonies to be pretty childish and badly done. The closing ceremony is as bad or worse. The stars of the show are 70-something pop stars from the 60s and 70s. Our CWG ceremonies were far, far better IMO.

Guess it is a matter of opinion . I thought most of those musicians were from the 80s and 90s (except for Ray Davies). Pity they didn't have any metal stars on considering that British bands invented heavy metal \m/\m/. Would have loved to see a wall-to-wall stack of Marshall amps.

[Vasu]

linky please. I went to see bhuka nanga krikit phorum. and what do I see, typical underestimation of desh.

Enjoy!

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http://forum.pakistanidefence.com/index.php?showtopic=99670

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Pakistan has great friends in the form of Turkey, Iran and obviously China. These guys have the expert coaching in sports like wrestling, boxing, weight lifting and yet we have never asked for their help. 

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Although i think we can put somebody in boxing and weightlifting at least, and get a SSG in marathon! 

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And its crazy that those little chinese people have more athletes than us 

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Pakistan Army have quite alot of sports team like Basketball, swimming and Football etc.. I wonder why don't they partcipate in it as individuals or group represent the country 

No point in helping crappy Paki sites gain more traffic and eyeballs. Would suggest remove the link and mail it to whoever wants it on personal mail pliz.

That being said, thanks for the laugh!

6 medals is good, though am disappointed none of them are of golden hue, and I certainly feel our athletes have smelled blood now. 2016, we should pour everything we can into archery, boxing, shooting, badminton, and get back on our feet in weightlifting. Successes in multiple disciplines should be a good confidence booster.

[Lalmohan]

very pleased with the overall performance of Indian athletes, but yeh to trailer ka trailer tha... much more hard work ahead before we are in the sizeable rankings. also, this time around the commentators had respect for indian athletes - not just a smirk and 'wonder how long sdre will last?' type of comments - but taking the competitors seriously. that is not just a reflection on the competitors, but also the nation

in rio gb will struggle to repeat their performance of this time, expect to see both brazil and south africa massively improve their tally amongst the usual suspects

india should realistically aim for 10-12 next time, including 2-3 golds

[Rahul M]

10-12 medals with 2-3 golds would move us into the top 30 bracket if not higher. a good target to aim for and doable as well.

[Gus]

No point in helping crappy Paki sites gain more traffic and eyeballs. Would suggest remove the link and mail it to whoever wants it on personal mail pliz.

putting links in code tags does not drive traffic, AFAIK.

[krishnan]

Olympic [ Images ] women's shot put champion Nadzeya Ostapchuk has been stripped of the gold medal she won at the London [ Images ] Games a week ago after testing positive for a banned anabolic steroid.
Click here!

Two urine samples taken from the Belarussian before and after her win last Monday tested positive for metenolone, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said in a statement on Monday, the day after the Games ended.

"Ostapchuk...is disqualified from the women's shot put event, where she had placed first (and) is excluded from the Games of the XXX Olympiad in London in 2012," the statement said.

Belarus had been ordered to return Ostapchuk's gold medal which would now be awarded to New Zealand's [ Images ] Valerie Adams, it added.

Russian Evgeniia Kolodko would move up to silver and China's Gong Lijiao would get bronze.

[Lalmohan]

thapar continues to be an idiot

[Victor]

Both the esteemed minister and Thapar are idiots. We don't get our athletes from the malnourished but from the 400-500 million Indians who are as healthy as anyone in the world, a population the size of 15 Australias. This is why Indian hockey will need decades to be revived--it is rotten from the core, just like anything that becomes a source of power and money in India. The way forward is to withdraw from international hockey for a few years and sort out the HI-IHF mess first. Bring the old players into the room and let them tell the govt what to do. Then the govt needs to shut up and do what they suggest. It can be no worse than what we have now.

We need to learn from this mess and realize that the "system" in India is such that pretty soon, we will see the same power grabs and chaos in wrestling, boxing and archery unless we are careful. Clueless people like this Maken fellow clearly have no place in Indian sports.

Any Indian hockey team needs the funds to train and play against the top teams worldwide but it is criminal to throw money on it until the foundation is healthy.

[darshhan]

Early impressions:

Boxing: Improve training systems. Sandhu is a legend as a coach, but still old school. I don't agree with his 'north Indians are aggressive but not smart, southies are smart but lack killer instinct' silliness. These mindsets need to go. He's retiring after these games. I hope the newer coaches teach versatility to deal with new scoring systems, and help the 5 boxers we have who are all 19-20 now, to at least AG medaling standard.

Wrestling: Not getting it's due. It gave us 2 Olympic medals in 2 days, and 3 from the last 2 Olympics. Our coaches and players looked poorly equipped in threadbare jackets and accessories. It felt a bit bad seeing two obviously happy SDRE coaches on the sidelines wearing training apparel that's seen better days - even the NoKos seemed like they funded their team better.

Shooting: We lack depth in the men's categories, and don't have even AG standard women, much less OG standard. Coach Sunny Thomas was good for the purposes of creating this foundation, but by his own admission, he lacks the coaching and training technical expertise of peers elsewhere. Lacking in large bore events - we have folks like Manavjit and Ronjan, but they have to do most of the training on their own time and dime.

Tennis: Punked by Bhup/Bop. At least Paes/Bhupathi or Sania/Bhupathi were strong contenders. We could create neither team. No medal potential for Rio - not enough depth.

Hockey: Sorry, no chance in either 2016 or 2020 unless the hockey league unearths some great TFTA-built talent.

Archery: Overall, I'll just say we performed to potential, which was not much. WC rankings are misleading. Our teams lacked depth and performance at this level. However, the foundation is present, with Deepika being the first of a new generation of archers from Tata Archery Academy. Needs more talent spotting and rigorous training. We need at least 2 people per men's and women's team capable of medaling at individual AG level, to be real contenders at OG level.

Badminton: Give Gopichand whatever he needs. Everything else needed to build around Saina's accomplishments is already there. Potential singles medal for Saina or Sindhu in Rio. We need at multiple top 20 ranked doubles teams - MD, WD and XD. The Koreans made this their SOP - avoid the Chinese depth in singles by focusing on doubles.

There are many other medal rich sports we can target:
* rowing, canoeing, kayaking (the Army program has already made us AG gold medal standard)
* weightlifting (yes doping is almost certain, but do it properly, like the Chinese, and don't get caught)
* judo and taekwondo (those too agile for wrestling can be trained in judo. Those who are too MMA for boxing might be good training bets for taekwondo)
* diving (the yanks and brits have shown the Chinese aren't impregnable here)

It boils down to improving upon the existing standard of training professionalism. There's only so much money can do. There's really no substitute for training standards. One can have all the raw talent needed, like the East Africans in running, but it takes hard training ultimately.

+1.Fully agree with your analysis.

[Lalmohan]

the minister is right in that the low human development index is an indicator of why we are not very good. how or why that is the case is a different matter

[Singha]

the minister is one of the better ones we have had.

[Theo_Fidel]

Congrats India on an improved performance.
----------------------------

Now that it is over we can begin the rhona-dhona.

BTW it is not that we are not good. We are just not competitive. On many many many levels. Competition makes one sharper and stronger. Brings out the good qualities.

Minister is right that HDI and per capita income is shatteringly low. Where the responsibility for that lies is a continuing nation embarrassment. As our per capita improves we will do better. By the next one in Rio we will be pushing $3,000 in percapita income. By the one after that in TBD, we should be pushing $5,000 in per capita.

It is obvious now that we have strengths to exploit in several areas like wrestling, shooting, archery, Badminton, etc.

The key thing about the Olympics
-all these competitors have faced each other over and over again for 4-5 years.
-competitors hunt in packs, preferably large.
-costs $4-$5 Million to sponsor a single world level athlete. SAI budget $200 Million.
-Facilities help but competition helps more.

[Singha]

fencing also looks like a sport where supple badminton player types can work with. but the cost of the electronic sensor systems have make it affordable in a central facility only. badminton can be played anywhere and is popular in india, plus lots of international comps.

fencing seems to be a cash poor sports with only some traditional enthusiasts like hungary and such deeply pursueing it.

[venkat_r]

Good show here - next step should be to target 100 medals in the Asian Games; Quality and standards to improve and also broaden the catch.

Swimming and Atheletics

[Suraj]

A common strand running across all sporting disciplines here is a training system not upto par with its peers, except for isolated cases. The only athlete that immediately comes to mind as practicing such a level of focused training and scientific input is Abhinav Bindra, who has the benefit of family wealth to hire his Austrian coach, psychologist, nutritionist and trainer.

Training approaches built around hand-me-down coaching ideas that go unquestioned does not help. The Chinese, for example, demonstrated the active ability to spot kids who would develop the necessary physiological traits for particular kinds of sports. They did this even as they were coming out of the Cultural Revolution tumult. All they did then was apply years of focussed training, mental conditioning and nutrition support. That's the ability we lack - to be able to take a kid who will grow up with the the necessary size/weight traits and apply a level of training that'll raise him/her to world level competitive standard.

For example, Vikas Gowda is something like 6'9, among the biggest/tallest of the finalists, but lacks the toned physique of some of his discus final peers. If he had the benefit of the kind of conditioning and training regimens that the gold winner Harting of Germany has the ability to obtain, he could have leveraged his natural size and strength better. Unfortunately, Vikas is an NRI who trains with his own money and has no system, even just a small group of very competent coaches and support staff, to help him.

Wrestling seems like the notable exception here, in that our medalists demonstrated parity in ability with the winners, and visible superiority over almost everyone they faced in one aspect - holding strength. When I saw Sushil hold down someone with his legs and arms it was clear it was not a matter of whether he'll get points, but how many; there was no way the person was getting away - not even Yonemitsu, if Sushil had managed to hold him down. Sushil also demonstrated that this level can be accomplished on a 100% vegetarian diet - he does not even consume eggs. If the wrestling system can produce 3-4 players of Sushil's or Yogeshwar's ability per OG, we're pretty much guaranteed at least one medal in every OG in this discipline.

I continue to believe that there's little correlation between per capita income and gold winning ability. Even China demonstrated the ability to win 15 golds in a games with a dirt poor economy three decades ago. There's no substitute for funding and training effectively, but it doesn't cost anywhere near so much as to constitute a moral dilemma regarding 'should we put the money into something more important'. Sport IS important. It inspires people, particularly the most important ones - the children. It gives them heroes and role models. Every kid who worked hard in a sport grows up with the benefit of knowing how to drive and motivate him/herself. The welfare vs sports debate ignores all these intangible benefits. In that sense sports programs are not much different from the space program, and we don't even have to spend more than 10% of what we do on space.

[negi]

Swimming and Athletics will take time; diving is a relatively low lying fruit where one need not be a tfta or train to have those huge max VO2 numbers (like rowing or running) so we can target that.

[SaiK]

I think we need better strategy.. and work towards it delinked from gov sponsored or funded agenda. we need to ostracize babudom from sports in the first place. olympic selection committee is more from past Olympians with no track record of being politician.

India should have goal specific agenda - 5 golds is a good start, and reachable within certain scope without political controls.

[kshatriya]

Noticing lot of people, especially Indian girls surprised Veggie Boys like Sushil, Yogeshwar are able to demolish the beef easting Men from the "*Stans"

[sum]

^^ The most unforgettable moment of this Oly which i wont be able to forget my lfe was the amazing anaconda-like roll Yogi did to demolish his N.Koran Lil. Kim and win the bronze....absolute goosebiump moment.

The one moment i will forever regret is missing Sushil lifting the Uzbek on his shoulders in the semis like a Hercules and pelting him down. Truely signalling to the wrold that the SDRE days are over

[Victor]

the cost of the electronic sensor systems have make it affordable in a central facility only.

There are many state fencing associations already in place, so this obviously isn't such a big deal. There are even district level associations. Here is the Tinsukia Fencing Association's website:
http://www.freewebs.com/fencingtinsukia/

[kshatriya]

Tendulkar calling Sushil

[shaardula]

suraj et al, thanks for the great posts through the games.

[shaardula]

ok sum quit teasing and point to videos.

[Victor]

the minister is right in that the low human development index is an indicator of why we are not very good.

This is not relevant at all because in spite of the USA and Great Britain being at the top in human development, they are #49 and #23 respectively out of 85 countries in medals/population, so that's not what determines a country's performance obviously. What is more important is that even if just 1 in 10 Indians (120 million) were considered "healthy", that is equal to the entire populations of the top 20 nations on a medal/population basis. But we are dead last at #85 as a country.

We need to look at "Olympics India" as a separate country of 120 million+ healthy individuals, a country the size of France and Italy combined. And we need to ruthlessly look at our efficiency.

[kshatriya]

ok sum quit teasing and point to videos.

Here is Yogeshwar's crocodile spin..From 1:10 onwards

[Suraj]

The amount of torque applied by Yogeshwar's move is extraordinary, showing just how strong he is. The Nork had braced himself knowing what Yogi was trying to do, but still got flipped over with such ease. By the last roll the Nork looked like he had given up.

[member_23629]

The one moment i will forever regret is missing Sushil lifting the Uzbek on his shoulders in the semis like a Hercules and pelting him down.

Here is the video of the bout:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GrrQQ0ufYQ

The Hercules act is 10:15 onwards

[Ardeshir]

The one moment i will forever regret is missing Sushil lifting the Uzbek on his shoulders in the semis like a Hercules and pelting him down. Truely signalling to the wrold that the SDRE days are over

Sum ji, I saw that move, and it came at a time when I was about to switch off the television because Sushil was down 0-3 with just about 30 seconds remaining. What a moment that was!
On the other hand, I regret missing Yogeshwar rolling the NoKo guy around.

[Lalmohan]

sorry victor, it does make a difference. in terms of overall level of sports facilities and organised competitive sports at a high level - which is one route for growing excellence. there is the chinese model ofcourse that focuses resources. we have to chose which model is right for us

[Theo_Fidel]

Suraj,

Training without knowing your competition is quite meaningless IMO. What are you training towards, what are your standards, what weaknesses have you identified and are working on. None of these things are revealed by training. As a former low level competitive Badminton player, when you showed up on court the vast majority of players were similar in training levels. Occasionally a truly gifted player would show up and there would be a mad scramble to match his ability and the technical skill of everyone would go up several notches. And in most sports visible musculature has limited basis as a performance indicator.

Coming 8th in Discus Throw is phenomenal IMO. That by itself says that there is nothing wrong with his physique. It is already operating at maximum performance, despite superficial appearances. His personal best is only 2 m off the Gold medal performance.

But 100% of the time it had to do with your mental ability, a laser like competitiveness and a ferocious drive to win, at all costs, even when you are injured. Training does not instill this in you. What Americans call 'do you want it bad enough!'

What does install it in you is competition. There are a few who simply can not stand to lose. They will do whatever it takes, sometimes illegal, to squeeze out the win. I can tell you constant competition made me a far better player than all the training I ever went through. Over training in fact can affect your 'game-time' speed and reflexes and ability to adjust to situations on the fly. Training is a coaches solution to the game, few competitive players will fully subscribe to it.

[partha]

ok sum quit teasing and point to videos.

Here is Yogeshwar's crocodile spin..From 1:10 onwards

wow..that was awesomely done. Thanks for the video.

[SBajwa]

This is not relevant at all because in spite of the USA and Great Britain being at the top in human development, they are #49 and #23 respectively out of 85 countries in medals/population, so that's not what determines a country's performance obviously. What is more important is that even if just 1 in 10 Indians (120 million) were considered "healthy", that is equal to the entire populations of the top 20 nations on a medal/population basis. But we are dead last at #85 as a country.

The real question to answer is that how many of Indians can see sports as a career at district, state, national and international level?

If 1-2 wrestlers in a small village can sustain themselves and their families by just participating in the wrestling bouts that people in close by villages see! we have arrived. Sports need to be subsidized by Panchayat (by providing the land), Muncipalities, State governments and Central government at each level (School and/or professional)

so! A school athlete can go up through participation in school/college/university/national/international competition. while a non-school athlete can participate through non-professiona/professional (non-profit or money making sports) in village, cities, etc.

Money and fame are two motives inside the country while national pride takes over at international meets.

[johneeG]

^^^Excellent observation. +108...