It would have been an embarrassingly humiliating Olympic drought for India at Paris but for young Manu Bhaker, barely out of her teens, shooting two bronze medals and missing another by a whisker! She is certainly gold material unless spoiled by flattery from charlatans and fawning by the media. Hope her ever-supportive parents would not allow that to happen!

While so, I am more of a sports watchman than a sportsman. So, I sat glued to the ‘idiot box’ from Day 1 till the end of the Paris Olympic Games. No wonder like all ‘patriotic Indians’, I was also furious at India’s pathetic performance coming at No: 71, which is near the bottom while being top-most in the world in population. I was incensed at the comparative performance analysis floating in the media, particularly these types since I have been hearing from several circles that under the ‘Vishwaguru’ we have already conquered the world in GDP and diplomacy!

I briefly lapped up the version of the ‘de jure’ President of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) P.T. Usha that it is the athletes who are responsible for this pathetic show because it is their job to manage their own affairs and win medals for the country. Isn’t Vinesh Poghat the epitome of such mismanagement? Who asked her to protest against the sexual predators of the Wrestling Federation of India, get dragged on the streets by the Delhi Police, gain weight in the process and get herself disqualified from the gold medal contest?

But, fortunately, the ‘de facto’ President of IOA and International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Nita Ambani had a different take. To her winning Olympic medals is a team work and India would do so in double digits in the Paris Games by giving their best performance. She backed it up by setting up an ‘India House’ at La Villette, and announcing that the day India hosts the Olympics is “not far”. In this she was only backing up Prime Minister Narendra Modi who in October last year had proclaimed India’s bold intent to bid for the 2036 Olympics, pledging to spare no effort to fulfil the dream of 1.4 billion people in the country.

Full of patriotic fervour, Nita Ambani had added: “India has arrived. It is time that the flame that was first lit in Athens must light the sky in our ancient land Bharat. The day is not far when India will host the Olympic Games. Let this be........

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