The period of time from the end of the Athens Olympics to the start of the Beijing Olympics saw a big lull in terms of celebration of other sports apart from cricket. With the exception of the CWG 2006, the hockey team continued to disappoint, weight lifters were banned for taking drugs and federation bosses were at loggerheads with each other.
End result: Nothing to show when it came to on field performances.
Cut to August 11th 2008: Each and every negative thought and sentiment, bad blood and acrimony was forgotten when Abhinav Bindra became the first individual gold medalist for India. Suddenly, the same set of people who were vying for power became united in celebrating the success of Bindra, as if to take credit for his performances. It is a well known fact that Abhinav had expressed disgust at the training facilities and federation politics, a reality which meant that he had to build a shooting range in his sprawling bungalow in Chandigarh where he trained for long hours before the big event. The national anthem that was played when the gold medal was handed to him made every Indian swell with pride.
It suddenly seemed to have been the right catalyst to spur on the other athletes in the Indian contingent. Although Saina went down fighting in the quarter final, her abilities were never in doubt. Lee-Hesh couldn''t put behind their past by getting close to the medals, but two men who didn''t know what it was to be in the limelight came to the fore in grand style. Vijender Singh and Sushil Kumar, were perhaps helped by the fact that they didn''t have any reputation behind them going into the games. It was sheer joy seeing them slug it out with the enthusiasm of a small kid rewarded for an ice-cream for getting an A grade.
Somewhere down the line we also forgot the contribution of another boxer called Akhil Kumar, who went down fighting. He missed the medal by a whisker, but we as Indians have only respected the eventual outcome and not the process that goes into it. The moment we respect the process and the work that goes into it, we would be better adapted to handle success and failure in the same wavelength.
Suddenly, the country began to realize that there is immense talent in the boxing community of Bhiwani, which was otherwise known to be a small and sleepy town in Haryana. Does it need an effort like this to realise our true potential? If that is the case we need to unearth so many other sleepy villages in India which can be the featherbed for medals at an international event.
While Bindra had been around for quite some time, we unearthed two polished jewels in Vijender Singh and Sushil Kumar, two raw jewels in Akhil Kumar and Saina Nehwal, and one glittering diamond in Abhinav Bindra.
All of them have gone on to achieve something bigger since, a fact which was very evident with their ''favourites'' tag in the recently concluded CWG.
Who are the heroes we are going to unearth at London 2012? If we are going to come up with these answers only post the event, it will indeed be very sad. We need to identify them now and polish them to give it their all when the games begin.
The Asian Games could prove to be a step in the right direction, for identifying the cream of the sporting fraternity who will don national colours for the World''s biggest sporting extravaganza when it comes around in two years time.
-Shashank Kishore is a die hard sports fan and an engineer by profession. He works for a leading sports website.
