Lack of Government support and infrastructure
This year, India has sent its largest contingent in history to the Olympics. From shooting to archery to wrestling to boxing and badminton, every category in every sport saw some of India’s best sportsmen participating. However, our luck ran dry as most athletes failed to deliver it at the big stage and fell short of a medal. Many people back home had started criticizing the Olympians bitterly overlooking the fact that most athletes in our country train under horrible conditions and suffer due to lack of infrastructure and proper facilities. Many criticized the athletes without taking into consideration that most of them did not have full cooperation from the management officials.
Things took a turn for the better when Dipa Karmakar, India’s first ever gymnast in Olympics history earned fourth place with an inspiring performance in the vaults final. People and celebrities came out in full support for Dipa and accepted the result regardless. There were also strong criticism of poor management and lack of government support for the athletes.
Salman’s announcement
Recently Bollywood superstar Salman Khan, who played the role of a wrestler in his last movie Sultan has offered to pay one lakh and one thousand rupees to every single Olympian as a prize. He hopes that as the government tries its best to support the athletes and provide them sufficient infrastructure and facilities, the athletes would benefit if individuals can come up with their own contributions if they have means to do so. He thinks it will help India to become a better sports nation and most importantly, he wishes to show his appreciation and gratitude to the players who represented India in the Olympics. Salman Khan incidentally is also a part of the Olympic Gold Quest, which is an initiative to train young, promising athletes and turn them into Olympic medalists of the future. Even though we should all appreciate Salman’s efforts and financial contribution, we should also realize that in order for India to truly develop, government’s involvement and infrastructure at the grass root level has to improve significantly. Most importantly, the carefree attitude of the officials have to change and we need to more supportive of the athletes and be mature enough to understand that it is not possible to win medals and trophies all the time and we should be cooperative and understanding under every circumstance and not hype them only during the Olympics but also during the four years in between.