How to win more medals at the Olympics
The secret to winning more medals is actually very simple. The rise of China up the medal tally is enough to know that such a strategy is indeed possible. Consider this for a second, if you want to emerge as a serious contender for the medals at the Olympics, you better be good in either swimming or gymnastics. It would take nothing short of a miracle to keep you off the top ten if you are good at both.
Eastern Europe and the erstwhile Soviet Union literally ruled the gymnastics arena until the Chinese and the Americans realized the vitality of the sport for dominating the Olympics. Theoretically, building a gymnastics program doesn’t take much, if the government decides to. Investment in a foreign coaching team and provision of a state-of-the-art training complex is really all you may need. You will definitely find willing students, if you promise them an Olympic medal, provided they put in adequate training, determination, and perseverance to make sacrifices.
Thousands of students make similar sacrifices just to feature on the merit lists of their respective education boards, so why not in the field of sports which could bring your worldwide fame. Of course, schooling would be provided by the state within the training facilities. It surely wouldn’t be difficult to find at least 30 such children to train over the period of at least eight years. Gymnastics is a competitive sport but given the talent and guidance, hard work is rewarded at an early age. There are at least ten events, maybe more if you factor in men’s and women’s categories and three times as many medals.
On the other hand, swimming boasts of the maximum number of events; 32 at the last count. That puts up at least hundred medals up for grabs. No wonder, only a swimmer can now hope to win the maximum medals ever in a single Games (gymnastics follow close behind). Phelps is an amazing athlete but he could never have dreamt of winning as many medals as he did this time, if he was a boxer, rower, or a shooter. If you still jump in the pool from a higher altitude, you will stand to compete in at least half a dozen more events (and hope for more medals). Synchronized diving has only increased the events in the pool.
Team games are passé in Olympics. Other nations learn quick and your dominance is quickly ended; ask USA with regards to basketball and baseball (Americans are smart though, they introduced women’s soccer, softball and beach volleyball to win a few more). Individuals are remembered in Olympics. No one remembers the all-time great Indian hockey team or any of its players but everyone remembers a Jesse Owen, Paavo Nurmi or a Carl Lewis. Indian hopes are always more safer with individual performances; PT Usha, Milkha Singh, Limba Ram, Jaspal Rana, Leander Paes, or the contemporary Anju George or Anjali Bhagwat. Individual disappointments are easier to handle and rectify.
We don’t really expect to go to the top of the medals tally but couple of golds with a sprinkling of silvers and bronzes can make us a force to reckon with. Olympics have become a serious game of strategy. Don’t aim for the sports you have been historically good (cricket is never going to make it to the Games) but instead develop a focused program on sports that are most likely to win medals, more individual-oriented and doesn’t need a grassroots cultural shift in the population. I bet no one of us had ever heard of Rathore training in an obscure Army shooting range. It works.
PS. I haven’t won any medals but love to preach.
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