The Tokyo Olympic Games Thread

[disha]

Forum members must watch Modi's interaction with Olympians.

.

He clearly says that the autograph''ed items he is receiving will be auctioned off and from the money he receives it will be used for an useful purpose.

Also he extracts a promise from all the olympians.

[Cyrano]

Wonderful, personal touch for all athletes.

Those who criticise that this event was all about Modi projecting himself need to really look into themselves and ask self, "what poison have I swallowed that instead of getting inspired by these achievers and feel pride that my whole country supported and rejoiced in their victories, my only reaction is to say Modi conspired" .

[srin]

I didn't see any thread on paralympics, so posting here.

[Suraj]

India has appropriated javelin throw as its own . First a gold in the Olympics. Now gold in Paralympics (with a huge world record) too.

[disha]

India has appropriated javelin throw as its own . First a gold in the Olympics. Now gold in Paralympics (with a huge world record) too.

There is a time when one feels a feeling that is beyond exhilarating Joy. A point where the mind is both consciously and sub-conciously serene.

It is a zone where one is very content. All of the emotions Joy, Gratitude, Pride, Awe, Amusement!, hope and inspiration come together in perfect harmony putting ones mind at ease (Serene)

I humbly thank our Javelin throwers to give me that feeling in my living years.

There is no word that will describe this feeling. All positive statements in any of the above will equally hold true! Who would have thunk!?

[disha]

I didn't see any thread on paralympics, so posting here.

Thanks. Personally I do not want to see any different threads between olympic and paraolympic. I hope in the next games, both the events are held together. Not separately.

[Suraj]

I've always considered javelin and hammer throw as the most TFTA of all field events. Some prefer the elegance of discus to hammer, but my preferences are clear. I never thought I'd see an Indian medal in either of those at the world level. It just seemed like sports tailormade for brawny Europeans and far beyond our physique to catch up with for at least another generation.

In addition, javelin always had a unique confluence of technology, technique and power, something the other throwing sports don't. Shot put for example is just throwing an iron ball, no PhD in technology strategy involved. Javelins were different - the top companies were north European and worked with the pool of talent there. Even an American last won a javelin gold at Olympics about 70 years ago.

India has no history in javelin. Not even in Asian Games - one medal way back in the first Asiad is all we had, back when throwing high school level distances of the modern day got you a medal in the Asiad. Even TSP has some strong history in it in the 1950s/60s, but not us SDREs.

Then this kid comes out of nowhere, smashes the U20 world record by miles, wins the junior worlds, wins the CWG and AG while consistently always throwing 87-88m, and now he's immortalized himself in the annals of not just Indian but Asian track and field history. So amazing to watch him on the podium at Tokyo flanked by two brawny Czechs who are both about 3-4" taller than him.

Nutrition and health standards will produce a new generation of Indian sportsmen near par with the westerners. Already many high school kids are over 6', which was very rare 20-25 years ago. Probably one of the youngistanis here on BRF can comment how things are in this regard during the late 2000s and 2010s in Indian high schools.

We already see kids like 17-yr old Shaili Singh who won silver in the U20 world championships in long jump and did 6.59m, just 1cm less than the gold. She's coached by Anju Bobby George, who's India's only world championship medalist and holds the national record with 6.83m, a mark Shaili should overtake before she's out of her teens. For what it's worth, 6.6m would get her into the final of the Tokyo 2020 women's long jump:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Worl ... mpionships

The above site also has a nice revelation of the U20 javelin scene. The gold winner threw 76m. When Neeraj won the gold in 2016, he threw 86.6m, a ridiculous 10m more than the prevailing junior world level. The U20s and senior throw the same 800g javelin, so the performance is at par. I thought then 'if this kid gets good training he could win our first Olympic track medal'. He did.

[suryag]

BTW who said we dont have experience Maharaj Yudhishttira is a known hero in that art

[Suraj]

Oops I only looked at Asian and Olympic Games, not Itihaas Games too

[AshishA]

Nutrition and health standards will produce a new generation of Indian sportsmen near par with the westerners. Already many high school kids are over 6', which was very rare 20-25 years ago. Probably one of the youngistanis here on BRF can comment how things are in this regard during the late 2000s and 2010s in Indian high schools.

Yes. I feel almost everyone who is born after 1990s is taller than their parents by almost 4-5 inches. For example, I am 6'3 and my father is almost 5'11. Along with that, I also had lots of friends who are tall. It isn't a rare right to find 6ft young people these days. I feel that the height in India high schoolers has grown tremendously in the last 2 decades. The only problem I see is the rise of obesity among the young people. But with the focus on fitness these days, I feel we would have a huge talent pool in the next few years.

[hnair]

Got a horse in today’s(Wed) events at Tokyo Para Olympics. My man is competing:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidhartha_Babu

Know him personally and had the good fortune to sponsor some specialist gear out of my small pocket. Very proud and self supporting, so it is difficult to find out what he wants and help him. His life is an inspiration to all of us here (was a Taekwondo state champ but became paraplegic while studying in college due to an accident and as horrid luck would have it, he lost both his parents within months of becoming paralyzed… but switched to prone shooting). He decided one day to ditch his wheelchair and switched to a walker, developing upper body strength and a specialized walker(he is a good designer of gear) for climbing stairs etc. Drives from SAI Bangalore to Trivandrum alone with his doggo… too many stuff about him to narrate

Personal note: I have many reasons to slack off from getting off bed and doing something physical. But the thought of him having the most valid reason yet achieving all that he has is the greatest inspiration for me.

May you have some fun at Tokyo, buddy. For you are a gold standard already in any books!

[SBajwa]

Got a horse in today’s(Wed) events at Tokyo Para Olympics. My man is competing:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidhartha_Babu

Know him personally and had the good fortune to sponsor some specialist gear out of my small pocket. Very proud and self supporting, so it is difficult to find out what he wants and help him. His life is an inspiration to all of us here (was a Taekwondo state champ but became paraplegic while studying in college due to an accident and as horrid luck would have it, he lost both his parents within months of becoming paralyzed… but switched to prone shooting). He decided one day to ditch his wheelchair and switched to a walker, developing upper body strength and a specialized walker(he is a good designer of gear) for climbing stairs etc. Drives from SAI Bangalore to Trivandrum alone with his doggo… too many stuff about him to narrate

Personal note: I have many reasons to slack off from getting off bed and doing something physical. But the thought of him having the most valid reason yet achieving all that he has is the greatest inspiration for me.

May you have some fun at Tokyo, buddy. For you are a gold standard already in any books!

Thank you

[Prem Kumar]

That was touching, hnair!

Indeed, we need to remind ourselves of such people every day

[rsingh]

Respect to our paraolympians. What is total medal harvest? Think we have done better then last paraolympics. BTW there was this cyclist (special handicap cycle, who had an accident near on of our place. Guy was not injured but his cycle was damaged........Guy got gold medal in Paralympic.

[Rahul M]

Oops I only looked at Asian and Olympic Games, not Itihaas Games too

Suraj, what is the current status of our cyclists ? I remember you saying that a fine crop of cycling athletes were coming up.

[Suraj]

Oops I only looked at Asian and Olympic Games, not Itihaas Games too

Suraj, what is the current status of our cyclists ? I remember you saying that a fine crop of cycling athletes were coming up.

Esow Alben and his batchmates have now mostly aged out of the UCI junior category and are all 20 now. Way too young for senior grade level but they have a lot of potential with continued training. Top cyclists tend to mature around 23-30 years of age. They won medals in the 2018 and 2019 UCI junior worlds:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Worl ... mpionships
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Worl ... mpionships

Here's Esow's monster come from behind acceleration for the 2018 Worlds keirin silver:


I have been unable to find the video of the 2019 team spring gold, probably the most shocking result in the junior circuit in a while. That is the marquee event, always won by big rich powers. The boys beat world powers Germany and then Australia to gold. Team sprint is a brute force power event.

These kids have never been in contention for Tokyo as it's always been clear they're just too young either in 2020 or 2021 - Paris 2024 was always the realistic hope for them to make. Will they win there ? I don't know - track cycling costs big money, even more so in team events. Managed well like Neeraj, we could expect Alben to win medals in individual events. The kid is a freak of nature - India has 4 medals in the junior worlds and they're all his medals - either individual or part of the team.

Alben, Chopra... these are kids scripting world domination in sports India has never been into, extremely resource intensive and the preserve of the richest countries with the benefit of generations of nutrition-driven gains. It's so heartening to see the current gen kids so such un-SDRE things.

[Vamsee]

^^^^
Suraj garu,

How are the contestants selected for Olympics? I remember reading somewhere that country rank is what is important (top 8 gets to send 2 contestants & next 12 can send 1 contestant per country?). And India is very low ranked country at 29. So the only way to get qualified is to improve country ranking?

Regards,
Vamsee

[Suraj]

No idea. It's not like I was ever in contention - I have done team sprint once in a local track cycling club and my legs almost melted from the effort

Jokes apart, qualifying for Paris 2024 is a serious matter in itself. Since it's a 3 year cycle, everyone's aware they have a shorter ramp and potentially fewer events to qualify from. We're good at Asian level, able to crush the field with just our juniors, but against Europe its another matter.

I don't expect us to be in contention in team track events for or in Paris 2024, without putting a lot of money into this effort. Individual events, sure Alben could medal in pursuit, sprint, keirin, points... it takes strong coaching and tactical training atop his natural abilities.

In new sports there is a premium on coaching, and if you have no history, there are no good coaches to turn to either. Neeraj was trained by Kashinath Naik, who won bronze at CWG in 2010. Naik wasn't such a great thrower (only ~75m), but he did his part to create the legend of Neeraj Chopra.

In cycling, our push is coming from the services. Here's the track cycling story - goosebumps material:
Wheels up: From the IAF to sparking a cycling revolution
Cycling Federation of India's Onkar Singh on growth of National Cycling Academy, Esow Alben's success and more
People like Omkar Singh are what creates these stories. India need to keep backing their efforts and lionize their successes.

Trivia: in cycling, the color and style of the jersey indicates a rider's status. In Tour de France, the overall leader wears the yellow jersey. The fastest sprinter wears green. The best climber in the hills wears the polka dot jersey. And ONLY the winner of a world championship wears rainbow jersey. These are the first Indians in history to earn it:

[saip]

Paraolympics, India has so FOUR Golds, EIGHT Silvers and SIX Bronze - a total of 18 medals. Is this a record for us?

[Vamsee]

^^^^
Yes. This number is more than *all* the medals we won before 2014 put together.
Paraolympic team also trained in the same TOPS program as regular olympians & the results are showing.

[SBajwa]

2 more medal winning events today gold match and match for a Bronze in Badminton

[srin]

Found this very good info on TOPS

[Suraj]

Found this very good info on TOPS

What an absolutely spectacularly informative video. TOPS is a wonderful program. The effort taken to learn from initial failure shows how serious the desire to make it work is. Focus is important, and it repeatedly states, it's not trying to solve every problem and cannot do so. But it solves just enough to make an impact.

[chetak]

[Suraj]

India finished the Paralympics with 5 gold, 8 silver and 6 bronze. The total of 19 medals puts us in the top 25. If you go by total medals, we rank #17 .

In all prior Paralympics combined, we won 12 medals. In a span of a month, India has tasted Olympic success in a manner it never has before. Winning the most ever medals in one OG, followed by so many in the Paralympics that it dwarfs all prior games combined. The nation will be hungry for multiple golds in each games from now on.

TOPS has dramatically changed the situation for Indian sports. The heavy publicity each winner is getting is calculated. Publicity brings money, and money brings more success. As the video above states, TOPS is a very careful and focused bet on a small group, and the policy has been wildly successful to date. With private money now likely to follow, the government can step back and let that money fund the broader development of sport.

The government's job is to create the right environment for economic activity to flourish, and this is a perfect playbook operation here.

[Cyrano]

Tremendous job by India and inspiring performances by our Paralympics athletes !

There is a lot to admire in this success in terms of the consideration, care and investment shown by Indian parents, teachers, coaches, support staff friends and family, sponsors, institutions and the society at large in enabling these fighters with various kinds of impairments and handicaps to excel in their chosen disciplines and compete at the highest levels and win.

As an illustration : A classmate of mine is a sports nutritionist at SAI who has worked intensely for the past few years (especially during the prep phases for the past year, leaving her family behind and staying at SAI facilities along with the athletes for several months) with both the Olympics and Paralympics teams. She confirms that there is as much investment and effort put into both teams from our sports institutions, managements and various ministries. What a huge change from CWG cesspool era !

Every Indian can truly be proud of our athletes, para athletes, and ourselves.
Citus altus fortis in a very true sense.

[Rahul M]

Suraj, thanks a lot for those posts on the cycling revolution (no pun intended) in India. I hope they adopt the best practices system wide so that we start creating the next gen now itself.

Very heartening performance from the paralympians too. Interestingly, I found out that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devendra_Jhajharia has made the javelin event his own and won gold in both 2004 & 2016 & 'only' managed a silver this time.