Dinesh Kamath's Editorial (London Olympics has taught India some lessons) that was published in Newsband

London Olympics has taught India some lessons

India could not enjoy a double-digit medal tally in London Olympics. But the half-dozen that she ended up with represents her best ever result in Olympics. Before this achievement, the country had won just seven individual medals in the Olympics since Independence.

The absence of a gold medal does make an Indian sad. For a country with an annual sports budget of just over Rs 721 crore, where bureaucrats and sports administrators test the endurance of athletes even before they qualify for the Olympics, the London show is undoubtedly encouraging.

The Indian medal winners - Gagan Narang, Vijay Kumar, Saina Nehwal, Mary Kom, Yogeshwar Dutt and Sushil Kumar - deserve all the accolades, including substantial cash awards.

We were expecting a better performance from our boxers and archers. But they let us down.

As far as hockey is concerned, we scored an all-time low. This is a matter of shame. We now need to prepare a blueprint for the grassroots-level development of the game.

China had to make room at the top for the United States which had a gold count of 46, ten more than in Beijing. China’s gold collection came down from 51 to 38 while Britain earned 29 gold medals in a total of 65.

London did a great job in the matter of holding Olympics. Praise should go to organizers for a job well done.

U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps had all-time record Olympic medal haul of 22 and Usain Bolt’s completed a back-to-back sweep of three gold medals in sprint to claim a legendary status for himself. Indians should learn from the achievements like these.

For athletes to do well in international sporting events a lot of support from the politicians and bureaucrats who control affairs at the state and national levels is needed. India would do well to study the China model.

It is high time different sports authorities in India spent more money in infrastructures and boosted the young talent in every field of sports.

  We should stop bragging about the history of Indians in Olympics especially in sports like hockey. Every country is adopting new techniques and style in every sport. London Olympics already witnessed some of the magnificent performance from the countries like Bahamas who won gold in 4x400 relay race by destroying the dominance of American in this format and Uganda who won gold after 40 years in 50 km marathon race, to show world that nothing remains same forever. Indians should derive inspiration from these countries.