The success of Sushil Kumar and Vijender Singh in Beijing — they won bronze medals — following Abhinav Bindra’s gold, will be remembered among the great moments in Indian sport. The youngsters have started believing in themselves and their ability to match the best in the world, writes Kamesh Srinivasan.
When you have a boxer and a wrestler winning Olympic medals, in one edition at the Beijing Games, following the gold by shooter, you know that the country has learnt to fight well in sports, even with empty hands. In fact, the two medals came on the same day, August 20, which will be remembered in Indian sports in the years to come as the day when the pessimistic shackles were broken to paint a bright tomorrow.
The youngsters have started believing in themselves and their ability to match the best in the world. They have been taking slow but sure steps. The key is to stay with the momentum.
Wrestler Sushil Kumar and boxer Vijender Singh captured bronze medals to trigger unprecedented celebrations back home even as a cricket series was on in Sri Lanka. Olympic medals have been all too rare in Indian sports, and appreciative cash awards from all quarters indicated the level of satisfaction of a success-starved nation.
Independent India has had only four individual Olympic medals — wrestler K. D. Jadhav (1952), tennis ace Leander Paes (1996), weightlifter Karnam Malleswari (2000) and double trap shooter Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore (2004). To add three more to that list in the span of a fortnight has indeed been a fantastic effort.
What wrestler Sushil Kumar did after losing his first bout — he stayed positive and clinched the bronze in the freestyle 66kg category after winning three bouts in a span of about 70 minutes in the repechage — will be remembered as the real story of the phoenix in Indian sports folklore. The 25-year-old wrestler from Najafgarh, Sushil, was competing in his second Olympics and knew that if he let his chance go, he may not get it again after four years.
Introduced for the first time in wrestling, the repechage system was a good format, which specified that all the losers to the eventual finalists get to fight among themselves to decide the two bronze medallists. Sushil rode on his luck with a gutsy performance, against Dough Schwab of the US, Albert Batyrov of Belarus and the semifinalist Leonid Spiridonov of Kazakhstan, to fulfil his dream of winning an Olympic medal.
A confident Sushil said afterwards that Indians too could win Olympic gold medals, if the support was better. “There is no dearth of talent,” he declared, with the medal around his neck.
Indian wrestlers over the years, such as K. D. Mangave, Prem Nath, Jagminder Singh, Rajender Singh, Sudesh Kumar, Rohtas Singh and Madho Singh, had done very well to get pretty close to an Olympic medal, but it took 56 years to realise another medal in the sport. That should highlight the magnitude of the achievement.
Vijender Singh, 22, from the famous stable of Bhiwani in Haryana, was competing in his second Olympics and was ready to accomplish the unfulfilled dreams of Gurcharan Singh who had missed the light-heavy weight medal in the last few seconds of the quarterfinals in the Sydney Games in 2000.
The first Indian boxer to win an Olympic medal, Vijender had showed his class two years ago by winning the Commonwealth Games silver and the Asian Games bronze. His confidence had grown manifold when he beat the best boxer of the last Olympics, Bakhtiyar Artayev of Kazakhstan, earlier in the season.
“This Olympics is going to be a turning point in my life,” Vijender had said in an interview prior to the Games.
He was not exactly prophetic, but was only asserting his determination.
After beating Carlos Gongora of Ecuador in the quarterfinals that ensured him a medal, Vijender was a bit subdued and over-cautious in the semifinals against Emilio Correa Bayeaux of Cuba. Otherwise, from the manner he had won his three bouts, Vijender deserved a better medal. From finishing 17th in Athens to winning the bronze in Beijing, Vijender has managed to unravel the mystery of Indian sports quickly.
To do that under pressure was laudable. For, the pressure was mounting on Vijender as the two other Indian quarterfinalists, Akhil Kumar and Jitender Kumar, had lost their bouts. The onus was on Vijender to break the jinx and strike a medal. He came up with clean punches in the quarterfinals against Gongora to emerge a convincing 9-4 victor.
“I am really happy to win a medal for India. All credit goes to my coaches and my parents, especially my father who went to a far-away temple to pray for my success,” said Vijender in his moment of glory.
Coaches Gurbax Singh Sandhu and the Cuban, B. I. Fernandez, had prepared the boxers well. More than that, they had backed them strongly by believing in their ability to come good on the big stage.
The Haryana Police announced that the inspector would be promoted to the rank of DSP. Vijender has indeed earned a good life, the hard way.
Interestingly, four of the five Indian boxers who had qualified for the Beijing Games had come from Bhiwani. Quite appropriately, the Haryana Chief Minister, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, announced that a boxing academy would be set up in Bhiwani.
That is the only way to spread success. Set up quality academies and hand over the responsibilities to the coaches who have produced good results over the years.
If anything, the Olympic movement is all set to be strengthened with the three Olympic medals, including the first ever gold by Abhinav Bindra.
“I am very pleased with the additional medals,” said Bindra, who keenly followed the fortunes of his team-mates on the television after returning home.
Indian sports needs to focus on winning more medals in the Olympic Games. It has to learn from the Chinese example. China has moved to the top of the table with 51 gold medals after returning to the Olympic fold in 1984. From 32 gold medals in Athens, it has shot up to outclass the traditional powerhouse, US.
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