London Paralympics: Girisha

Well it is more or less unnoticed event taking place in London at the moment. After all hum-drum about London Olympics faded, people (including me) forgot that there is paralympics staged at the same venue.

Surely news were appearing but they were occupying relatively small corners of the newspapers.

Yesterday, though was little bit different. It caught eye of many Indians. Although it doesn't appear gaining that much popularity as our Olympic winners got, but Girisha Hosanagara Nagarajegowda came into highlight when he won the silver medal in high jump event.

 He was competing in a group that comprise of sportsmen with disability with their hands or legs. Girisha has a disability with his left leg. Now, legs are I believe the most important part of body that helps you to push yourself high up away from ground.
In spite of that, Girisha managed to bring the best out of him to make his career best effort to cross the mark of 1.74 meters.

Can a normal non-athletic man do that easily? I doubt that. Even the Indian female contestant in London Olympics last month hardly managed to cross the height of 1.8 meters.

I think, bringing the best out of you at the big stage is a task that most of us and all Indian sportsperson fail to do. Girisha is an inspiration who should be respected and treated as well as our other Olympics winners.

Laxman: A not so sung hero

This is my 100th post on this blog. I had earlier planned a post on different subject, moving away from sports since my previous 15-16 posts were all related to sports -  Olympics and India.
But a news today morning changed everything.
This post is dedicated to one of the great batsman and a not so sung hero of Indian cricket - VVS Laxman.

VVS Laxman retired from test cricket today with immediate effect. He was selected for the forthcoming New Zealand series but he decided to retire without playing it.
It came as a surprise to not a few but I guess to all the followers of Cricket.
Some might have expected him to declare his retirement after the end of this series, but nobody must have expected that he will retire in such a haste.
If someone is asked what is the complete name of Laxman, the answer will be VVS Laxman.
But nobody would be able to tell what VVS means, because all they know is Very Very Special (VVS).That is his identity.
But, he was I guess the most unfortunate of the 5 gems of India.
These 5 gems can again be categorized in 3 levels

1) Sachin and Ganguly
2) Kumble and Dravid
3) Laxman

While Sachin is all time and every body's favorite, Ganguly with his aggressive attitude has earned this status close to Sachin.
Kumble and Dravid, being quiet couldn't reach that high altitude as first two but still they created a high status for themselves.
This leaves Laxman alone behind who in spite of making unbelievably great contribution to Indian cricket was lost in front of the 4 stalwarts.

Kumble- though was mostly ignored/ less considered player initially, made his mark in his fag end of the career. While retiring (the first among five) from cricket, he actually retired like "Jumbo" the name that was stuck to him. He made a grand retirement. Since he was the first among five to retire, that added a new dimension to his retirement.
Ganguly -  Though Ganguly's retirement was controversial and almost forced onto him, he took it in his stride. He made everybody  realize that he has earned it.
Dravid - Once again surely a case of forced retirement did not made that big buzz as previous two, but still he had his share on TV, newspaper, Internet media. All the applauding and saluting words related to " The Wall " were making rounds for a long time after his retirement.
Sachin -  He has gained that stature in Indian Cricket, which no other player has ever achieved. No body can force retirement on him. He will retire when he wants and now with added glory of a Rajyasabha member, will someone dare to force him into retirement. Some people may indirectly try to suggest, but all such efforts will always be futile.
This leaves Laxman as the only case who retirement did not recieve much accolades. Few words were said by Sachin and Ganguly but otherwise it was a quiet business.
He surely must have been to asked to announce his retirement after this series. He must have been offered a  condition where he retires after the series and he will receive a grand retirement and as one of TV anchor on NDTV said, all other players will take him on their shoulders and make a round of the ground and then give comments that how India has lost one great player and how the void that has been created with his retirement can not be  filled easily. BCCI will throw a party where all great liars of Indian cricket will come and brag about how Laxman was very very special.
             I liked the way Laxman instead chose and decided to retire without accepting this fake send off which none of those actually felt. In his famous way of fighting against the odd instead he chose to hang his boots immediately and without accepting their bribe. He surely has sent a message that the way they treat their senior players is not right.
           If the Indian cricket feels that a particular player is not fit to play in spite of what is his experience, they better don't choose it and ask them to prove themselves to be fit to be in the team. That will go well for the players instead of this decide the date method. Also every player is aware if he is still fit to continue playing or should he stop.
           It sounds ridiculous when people around keep suggesting that a player should retire. I was dumbstruck when people started suggesting Bindra, that he should retire, because he could not repeat his performance and could not win gold in Olympics. I was left with no words when people started suggesting  Sachin to retire giving example of Phelps who retired after a career of 4 Olympic season winning 22 medals.
           Coming back to Laxman, he was the most ignored gem of the set of 5 who actually played an inning that  changed the way Indian players started thinking. His knock of 281 runs in Kolkota against Australians in partnership with Dravid  was responsible for India snatching victory from Australians coming out of a follow on. I doubt Indians had ever done that before and his knock made it possible for Indians to think that they are a strong force who can not only stand against a strong team like Australia, but also dream of winning  over them.
It was Laxman who built this confidence in us. He repeated similar action many times in later matches and helped India win while all the other great players were getting out cheaply. People mentioned Dravid as a player who is ready to take up any responsibility, but Laxman is the only who was ready to play in any position. He is the only player who has played in all the position except 9th and 10th position.

In spite of such a great contribution, this hero is mostly ignored today after his retirement with people breathing a sigh of relief for he finally retired and making way great  emerging players ( read Rohit Sharma!!!!!).

I wish him good luck.

India at Olympics 2012 - Final day

                          On the final day, India had a last chance to update the medal tally. Two participants representing India, one in Marathon and other in 66 kg category free style wrestling.
                           From Marathon not much was expected, as accordingly Indian runner stood 78th in overall ranking. He could not repeat his performance given for Olympic qualification and took 14 minutes more to complete the race.
                           This brings to our last and one of the biggest hope in the form of Sushil Kumar. Even before Wrestling events started, Sushil Kumar had commented that he wanted to change the color of his medal. To add to that the previous day, Yogeshwar Dutt bagged Bronze which surely must have boosted his moral while going into the bout.
                            Interestingly, in first ever bout itself he had to fight with last time Olympic gold medal winner. I didn't know that. It seemed difficult to me for Sushil to make it to the next round. The opponent was looking too strong and at times it appeared that Sushil Kumar won't make it. While watching the match, I thought like all other talkers, even Sushil Kumar's words are going to go in air. But some how he managed to save the match and move on to the second round.
I was not sure that Sushil can go much ahead until I read about his opponent. By winning his first bout against last time gold medalist, he proved that he is stronger than last time and can actually go a long way to look for gold.
                            Next two matches looked relatively simple than the first match. While in quarter final he had an upper hand all along the bout, in semi final, things were going against him and he was almost on the edge.
                            With 1-1 set level in semifinal, the opponent had already scored 3 points in first 30 seconds itself. Filling up a gap of 3 points is very difficult knowing that the opponent now will not take any risk to loose the lead. Then Sushil started scoring points. At one point, there was an issue. It appeared as if Sushil bit his opponents ear. The opponent also had immediately complained about it to the referee. But there was no clear visual to confirm it. I do not know what happened next but the appeal was considered ahead and the bout was continued. It was a dubious situation and really difficult to confirm what exactly happened and why the opponent's ear started bleeding. Anyway, moving away from the controversy, Sushil regained his control over the bout and at one point he picked up his opponent, stood up and almost threw him down on mat. He won the set and the bout and entered finals confirming a medal for India.
                          Finals did not go well, possibly because of him not being fit physically at that moment. The Japenese wrestler had a cake walk to the Gold and Sushil had to settle down for the silver.
                         It brought India's challenge to an end in Olympics on a high note.
India could not win a gold this time, but it surely has doubled its medals than last time. This actually is a great news. It shows that India's power in sports is increasing. Some of our players lost their events missing out closely on medals. We actually could have crossed 10 medals in this season. But apparently, little more hard work is still required to make it larger.
I am pretty sure this development will surely encourage the young sportsperson as well as the governing agencies to give more attention towards sports. Things have started to move and it will take better shape by the time 2016 Rio Olympics arrive. This time we had some very young sportsperson like Deepika Kumari, Amit Kumar who still have age in their hand and now they also have experience with them. We doubled our medals tally this year from 3 to 6. And I am pretty sure, with this new young experienced bunch of sportsperson, we will surely cross 12 medals mark next time

India at Olympics 2012- Day 15

Day 15 must be the most successful day for India in this Olympics. India had only one event in the whole day  and it was ultimately successful.
India's Yogeshwar Dutt participated in 60 kg free style wrestling. I was not very keen to watch the match, because I don't wanted to witness again what happened to Amit Kumar. Little then did I know that Yogeshwar is little more tough guy than Amit.While could not do much in repechage round, thanks to his safe playing opponent and unfavorable luck, Yogeshwar did a fabulous job.
Yogeshwar did fare in his first round. In pre-quarter finals, as I was worried, he across the world champion. He fought well but that was just not enough. Fortunately his Russian opponent did well enough to reach finals creating an opportunity for the Indian to be back in the medal run.
Yogeshwar had to go a hard way to make it to the Bronze medal. Since he lost in the 2nd round itself, he had to fight with all the opponents who lost to the Russian wrestler.
I didn't get to see the first repechage bout where he had to fight to wrestler who lost to the Russian in the first round itself. Apparently Yogeshwar was lucky to get the favorable clinch position after the rounds tied. He managed to score just enough to make it to the 2nd repechage round.
I am not great fan of the way the clinch position is decided. It is totally based on luck. And you must be a great fool to loose this favorable opportunity. Moreover, there is no chance to make a comeback. Just one move, who ever grabs the opportunity (mostly the wrestler who has favorable clinch position), wins the round. I believe if in 1st round say a red wrestler is offered favorable clinch position, then next time, it should go to the other wrestler to make it an equal opportunity game. But somehow that doesn't happen. Why, is out of my understanding.
Anyway, coming back to Yogeshwar, if he was lucky enough to score points in clinch in 1st repechage round, I guess he was equally fool enough to loose points from favorable clinch position in the 2nd repechage round.
In the first round of the 2nd repechage game, Yogeshwar took the advantage of the favorable clinch position to almost pick up and throw his opponent on the mat. But his opponent was smart enough to keep a firm grip on Yogeshwar, and as soon as he was on the mat, he rolled over to get the back of Yogeshwar on the mat. I did not understand what exactly was happening there, but initially Yogeshwar was given 3 points, but after his opponent challenged the decision, it was reversed to give 3 points to the opponent. It was really confusing.
But then Yogeshwar had a tough task of winning next two rounds to make it to the bronze medal round. And he did that comprehensively. I found Yogeshwar as a wrestler who actually makes moves like picking, rolling and throwing opponent side ways on the floor. It was just fantastic to see Yogeshwar winning this fight and making it to the bronze medal round.
 The final round was going to be tough for Yogeshwar, since his opponent was on advantage that he directly came for the fight fresh while Yogeshwar had to play 2 fights each of 6 minutes in last 40 minutes. And he indeed was not fit. It was difficult to look at him. His left eye was swollen enough to close the eye.
The opponent from North Korea was also god. He won the first round easily scoring single point. In the 2nd round Yogeshwar managed to score point to equalise the rounds. The third round was the most important. Now while watching previous fights, all time I was wondering, why Yogeshwar is putting his head between his opponents legs. It used to look so weird.  Ultimately Yogeshwar himself gave the answer.
In one of the moves, after throwing the North Korean wrestler on the floor, when he once again put his head between his legs, I had no clue what amazing thing I am about to witness.
It was the initiation of the move. He converted this into a move where legs of the opponent are cross locked and the control is in your hand. And you try to put pressure to cross his legs more, the opponent is forced to flip to uncross the legs. Every such clip cost him a point because he need to roll over his back every time he tried to uncross his leg. Yogeshwar's grip on his opponents leg was so strong that he forced his opponent to roll over 5-6 times consecutively and won the fight even before scheduled 2 minutes.
 It was really wonderful performance by Yogeshwar and the fact he had to fight back right from scratch to win this medal makes it even bigger.
         This is one of the best performance by any Indian sportsman in such a big event and Yogeshwar totally deserves all the accolades.

India at Olympics 2012- Day 14

Towards the fag end of Olympics 2012, India's participation is now limited to free style wrestling event.
There are four categories, 55kg, 60kg, 66kg and 74kg where our wrestlers appear. Out of these, 2 events 55kg and 74kg happened on day 14. India's Amit Kumar in 55kg category and Narsingh Yadav in 74kg category ultimately ended their challenge on sad note.

In 74 kg category, Narsingh Yadav lost his bout in 2 straight sets. To me he appeared totally clueless about what is happening around him and before he came to his senses, the bout was over. For a moment I thought he is making his debut in wrestling competition through Olympics. Later on, found out that he actually has won many medals in different competitions for India.
It was really surprising to see the way he went for his first bout. Compared to him, his competitor from Canada looked far more relaxed and experienced. And he surely won his bout with sheer experience. He did not gave any opportunity to Indian wrestler.

In contrast was the performance of Amit Kumar. He is only 18 years old and the youngest of all the wrestlers. He got a bye in first round. And he did well in second round. He used good techniques and although his opponent was looking an experienced one, he managed to win the bout.

The quarter final round really confused me. I really have no idea how these judges give points. May be my lack of knowledge in wrestling, but the way I see it, Amit Kumar almost picked up his opponent and threw him on the mat. The opponent from Georgia regained the control quickly and ended up controlling the situation. I understand that the Georgian wrestler should get points, but why no point  to Amit and 4 points to opponent is really surprising. Well he lost the match finally.
Since the Georgian wrestler managed to reach the Final, Amit got another chance to fight for Bronze.
This bout was really horrible. Amit's opponent was just not at all ready to give in. He kept running away from Amit. Amit was aggressive and tried to make many moves, but his opponent was running away not allowing Amit to come any closer. I believe he should have been warned for avoiding the fight.
But nothing happened.
Now, this clinch thing is something funny. If a set ends in tie, then one of the wrestler (first the one in red and then if necessary in next round for blue) gets a chance to select a ball. Depending on the color of the ball, red or blue, one gets a chance to make a move with  other wrestler in more or less a surrendering situation (Hands up). And it is totally luck based who gets the advantage. It may happen that the same wrestler gets the advantage in all the rounds.
And that's what happened  with Amit Kumar. His opponent managed to take both the rounds till end by not at all fighting and unfortunately in both the rounds he got the advantage to make the move and gain single point some how managing to win the sets and so the bout.

Amit was really unlucky and must be really disappointed to loose it in this manner.

All we can say, he  will learn from mistakes he made, become more stronger and better in coming days and be better prepared for next Olympics.

India at Olympics 2012- Day 13

Well not a lot was expected from India on Day 13. Only three participants, with not many hopes.

Sahana Kumari, the only representation of India in high jump could mark the height of 1.8 meters. But she failed to touch her performance best of 1.92 meters. It was a bit disappointing. Had she even touched her best performance she would not have made it to finals because cut off was at 1.93 mts and there were lot of participants who touched that point.

But at least she manged to get a right jump unlike our triple jumper yesterday.
India has to go a long way to be in top three.

Another event was wrestling where Geeta Phogat, again a lone contender from India lost her match to her Canadian opponent. I watched the match and I was convinced that Geeta gave a good fight. Both the players won one set with one point each. In the third and final set, the Canadian opponent first got a chance to score. After few seconds Geeta also employed almost the same trick ( as I understand with my limited knowledge in wrestling) but the points obtained by two players were different. While the Canadian got 3 points Geeta got only 1.

I don't know what she did wrong, but she lost the match by 2 points overall.
She was not disappointing.

Although later on as I hear, she failed in repacage round and this time miserably to give away any chance of medal.


The third participation was in 800 mts running semifinals, Tintu Luka. Although she performed well by her own standards, reaching closer to her best performance, that was not enough. While she finished 6th or 7th with her close to best performance of 1.59 minutes, the qualifiers were in the time zone of 1. 57 to 1.58  minutes.
One thing which even I can point out is her running style. She moves her head so much left and right on every step, which surely is not helping in increasing her speed. She is loosing lot of energy in this unnecessary exercise. If you check all other runners, their head are still while running. I wonder if P.T.Usha, her coach did not realized this or they have some other theory behind this moving head.

Starting tomorrow, India's last piece of hopes in winning medals  in Men's Free style wrestling begins. There are 4 strong men with one Bronze winner Sushil Kumar. India has big expectations from 2 out of 4, Sushil Kumar in 66kg category and Yogeshwar Dutt in 60 kg category.

Sushil Kumar has mentioned that he will change the color of his medal. That will be great surely, but even if he retains his medal that is also fine rather than returning empty handed.

India at Olympics 2012- Day 12

                      Day 12 must be the most heart breaking one for India. Two major contenders of medal lost their bouts.
                      India's Mary Kom who had already fixed at least a medal for India, was fighting for the position in final. It was a tough match, but at the same time, Mary has defeated her opponent earlier. So, she also had a chance to win the bout. But unfortunately that didn't happened. She finally lost to the boxer from Great Britain. All Indians must have felt a bit disappointed. I personally found it more difficult to accept than the loss of Vijender Singh the previous day. I totally wanted Mary to make it to Finals. She must have fought well but guess the opponent was too good for her to beat.
                      The other disappointment that really did not go well with me was the loss of Devendro in the end of the day. Devendro really has a spark but somehow his opponent from Ireland was able to score points. I really don't understand how it works in Boxing, but except in 2nd round Devendro was better than his opponent. The 2nd round was not good for Devendro. But I kept wondering what exactly did his opponent did in the 2nd round to score 10 points.
                       It is overall disheartening to see all our 7 quality boxers fail to get medal and the sole medal comes from a woman boxer. But I must say, the referee and the judges did pathetic job and if not all at least half of our boxers would have made it to medal level.
                       A little relieving news come from athletics where Tintu Luka qualified for the semi finals of women's 800 meters race. He did run well and managed just in time to overtake the third runner who other wise was one of the favorites in her heat.
                       That's a good news but I guess not for long, because semifinal is tough. She will standing against few who are looking to challenge the world record of 1.53 minutes while her personal best is in the range of 1.59 minutes.
                       Time will tell how long is her journey.