Dinesh Kamath's Editorial (The power of Sports) that was published in Newsband

The power of Sports

Olympics and every competition are required to prove to which extent one can attain greater heights in the life and in different fields. Any healthy competition is not aimed only to win or lose but to create a spirit to take everything naturally and sportingly. The events like Olympics have shrunken the world to a global village.

Olympics has only one religion - that is sport, understanding and universal brotherhood. The winner does not hate the loser and the loser does not envy the winner. In every competition some one has to win and the other has to lose. It gives a signal to the loser that he has to accept that he needs more practice, more stamina and more skills. It creates killers instinct in a sportsman which make him practice more and achieve the desired goal.

If there is no competition, the people will not have idea of their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, potentials, scope for improvement etc. Although in London Olympics, we could not achieve a single gold and ended with just six silver and bronze medals, it has revealed out true picture of our standing in the international community. It has given a food for thought for the strategists, policy makers and the players and athletes where they go wrong and what they need to do to improve things.

The spectators of such competitions assemble to watch the events from a distance. They get entertained and inspired. They also tend to encourage the talent and toils of the athletes and our leaders of creativity in this field.

Does not sport offer us, in a very subtle way, a happy release from what is? It takes us away from ourselves, from our daily sorrows, pettiness and anxieties, it makes us forget; or it gives us strength to face life, it inspires, invigorates and pacifies us. It becomes a necessity in either case, whether as a means of forgetting ourselves or as a source of inspiration.

When sensations become a necessity, sports, music, the river, the painting are only a means to further sensation. Sensations become all-dominant. It is the desire for sensation that makes us cling to outward means such as sports, music, painting etc. Such is the power of sports and other art forms.