A note on the Rio Olympics and India

The no-good idiotic loudmouths of the Shobha De variety notwithstanding, and equally those ignorantly bemoaning the lack of medals… this has actually been one of the more improved outings for India at the Olympics and a harbinger of better times to come. The Indian delegation at Rio is its largest ever at Olympics, comprising of 117 athletes spread across various individual and team disciplines. This itself is a sign of a growing culture of sports, of greater interest and hope for improved infrastructure. And though we won 6 medals at the 2012 Olympics, our results this time are markedly better even if we may not have as many medals to show. This time around we have made a mark in events where one doesn’t even think of India participating in, let alone coming close to a medal by such close margins. The media has displayed its ignorance in these matters, and its desire to feed into the simplistic narrative of competitive sports and events such as the multilevelled Olympics as merely about the gold-silver-&-bronze, by not reporting or highlighting the many other achievements of the Indian contingent at Rio. This when we lap up 1-run victories over minnows like Bangladesh in cricket T20 internationals!

• The women’s team in Archery comprising of Deepika Kumari, Bombayla Devi and Laxmirani Majhi reached till the quarterfinals, and lost to 2nd ranked Russia.
• Srikanth Kidambi in the men’s singles Badminton also went till the quarterfinals where he lost to 3rd seeded Lin Dan of China.
• The 18 year old Aditi Ashok from Bengaluru is currently in the 8th position out of 60 players after 2 rounds in the women’s Golf event, with 2 more rounds left to go. She currently has a score of 6 under par, with the board leader just 4 shots away at 10 under par.