I loved this little blurb about the way the US vs. Canadian press covered the Games –
My dad once told me a story of which I don’t remember all the details now. It was probably from the ’84 games. An American was favored to win a race and didn’t, he came in second. A huge disappointment. The press ran up, immediately asking how he felt and how disappointed he was. In the same race was a Canadian athlete who finished last. The Canadian press rushed up to him as asked ‘You just achieved a personnel best at the Olympic games? How great does that feel?”
Bravo. Someone oughta teach this reporter a bit about sportsmanship – Indian sailors finish last again – Sify.com.
The Indian sailing duo of Malav Shroff and Sumeet Patel came up with yet another disastrous show to finish at the bottom of the table in the Mixed Open Double-handed Dinghy-49er Races in the 28th Olympic games on Monday.
The US-based Indians, Malav being the skipper and Sumeet the crew, proved no match at all at the highest level of competition at the Agios Kosmas Olympic Sailing Centre and they have been struggling to keep their head above water since race one.
With four more races to go in the 16-race event, the Indians, who came here with a wild card entry, simply stand nowhere and they would have to come up with spirited performance to leave Athens with their pride intact.
Sheesh.
I actually welcome the sharp-tongued Indian press, for exposing corruption and puncturing pomposity. Seeing things as they are is the first step towards fixing them.
Here is a more indepth article examining the situation in Time Magazine
And this SM post.
I agree – it’s unfortunate that in the aggregate, India has performed so poorly in the Olympics.
But, there are about 500 other ways to make this point than to hang the entire albatross around these 2 poor dudes and use language like “proved no match at all”, “struggling to keep head above water”, “simply stand no where”, and needing to do something to keep “pride intact”.
This is shrill, personal language directed towards a pair of individuals who’ve already accomplished an interesting feat. There is such a thing as constructive and even supportive criticism – the canadian reporter knew what it was, this Desi reporter has no clue.
This is shrill, personal language
True, true. But if India is ever going to win any medals, it would have to become a national priority – and the only way that’ll happen is if people start openly laughing at them (rather than the soft condescension of low expectations).
of course, I don’t believe India has enough athletic talent to win many medals. But surely they can improve on 1 medal.
Perhaps they can lobby the games to include yoga 🙂
The nastiness of the Indian press is ridiculous. The press over here is a combination of puritanism on page 1, sensationalism on page 3, righteous socialism on the editorial pages, and its manic depressive on the sports pages. I live in India right now and the press just drives me nuts. Cant read a freakin newspaper without getting pissed off.
Try reading the Hindu. You might get some puritanism and righteous socialism (both of which i have no complaints with), but you will certainly be spared the sensationalism.