Asian Games.....no proper media coverage

I have been following the ongoing Asian Games for the past 10 days or so....they are being held in Doha, Qatar....the surprising thing is most of the media is not interested in the events unless we win a medal or dont win a medal in an event we were expected win....

It was kind of sad to see a couple of lines on these great atheletes that sweat it out for the country but dont get any news coverage...but people like aishwarya rai, SRK and Indian cricket team hog the news for every small thing they do...

Jaspal Rana, shooting ace, won 3 golds but wasnt the headline for that day..but Ash and Bacchan Jr doing puja at Vaishnav Devi is on the front page!!!!!!!!!! So much for the hard work of the atheletes....on times of india website Asian Games werent even on the front page well till we started winning medals...no lead up articles and how the atheletes prepared and stuff....but the failure of Indian cricket team is scrutinized to the minutest detail and every-tom-dick-and-harry thats played the sport will make a smart ass comment on how the team failed and that something has to be done....brilliant...everyone knows something has to be done and that the players need to regroup and play...thats called stating the obvious...

India though has a 1/3rd of Asian population is finishing a lowly 7th or 8th in the medals tally...thats very disappointing and kind of sad state of atheletics in the country....but the bright side is that we have won abt 52 medals so far...which is by far the largest haul at the Asian games...kudos to the medal winners and the others that tried...

Thanks to Rana (Shooting 3 Golds and a Silver), Sania( 1 Gold and 2 Silvers), Hampy(2 Golds),Paes (2 Golds), 4 x 400m Womens and mens relay teams ( 1 Gold 1 Silver), Advani (1 Gold, 1 Bronze) and other medal winners we have a respectable total for the event but compare that to 147 Gold medals (287 in all) by China and aby 60 Gold medals each by Korea and Japan!!!!!!!!!!! Its a slap in the face of Indian Atheletic Association...but they care less about such things....they will only see the rich haul from this year's edition compared to the previous one...but the difference in the class of athletes...is quite obvious....

Shooters got abt 14 medals...by far the best section of indian contingent but the coach resigned on return as he was disgusted and disappointed with the facilities provided by the administration...Rana minced no words and flayed the Indian Sports Asscoiation (SAI)...for not providing any ammunition in time for practice and stuff like that....he went a yard ahead and mentioned that the credit for his win doesnt go to SAI....but goes to the coach and team....

If you think about it...3 Golds by rana, 2 by Paes, 2 by Humpy, 1 by Advani...are all individual efforts from world class contenders...all these people compete in internatinoal tournamenst and have excelled on their own...so those golds are not due to SAI...so 8/10 golds are not due to SAI !!!!!!!!! Now that speaks volumes of the facilities provided and also about the training standards in India....

Track and field that brought home 6 Golds and 12 other medals in the last edition has 1 gold and 6 other medals to show here in Doha edition...thats like going backwardsrather than forward in progress....and there can be only 2 reason....one, SAI didnt provide enough facilities and exposure and two, athletes didnt perform...most of them gave a lame excuse of not feeling good and sore back and stuff like that...how ridiculous...you train for the whole year for this occasion and then you fall sick on the race day!!!!!!!!!!!!! How come only Indian athletes fall sick and not the Chinese, japs and Koreans???? Its not like we are playing in a cold place either...we are playing in the middle east that has a climate similar to India....if not worse....perfect example....Anju george...Gold medal hope in Long jump....skips lot of tournaments this year to participate and train for Asian games (god knows why you have to skip events when they could have been used as dress rehearsals)....gets a Silver with a below par performance and then complains of sore back and withdraws from triple jump!!!!!!!!!!! Now can anyone explain this to me????

The media doesnt help the cause either as they dont cover the performance of the athletes all thru the year and only cover them at the games and then glorify their failure...medial should reduce the coverage on the Indian cricket and Hockey teams which have been waaaaayyyyy below par in their performances....right now both of them have hit a rock bottom...hockey was even more disappointing as we finished 11th /12 teams at the world cup and didnt even make semi finals of Asian Games!!!!!!!! So much for a nation that won 8 Olympic Golds!!!!!!!!!

The other sad story is that of football...few years ago we are in the top 75 teams now we are ranked 147th in the world!!!!!!!!! How many countries are ranked???? we have been steadily declining but no-one wants to do anything about it...

One of the headlines kind of intrigued me...."Indian Shuttlers disappoint"....well...FYI..this is Asian Games and most of the World's top players are from Asia and Indians are not among them so they are bound to have failures...it would have been too much to expect medals from Indian shuttlers...may be one...thats it...but they did put up a commendable fight and made Pre and Quarterfinals in most of the events....Indian mens doubles team also caused an upset...so instead of showing their performance in positive light they are shown as a bunch of losers....

I can go on and on about this topic...will have to continue about this later...