My Little Log Book

In a few hours from now - an Indian will create history in his homeland. Sushil Kumar will be the first native born Indian to win two individual Olympics medals. That might not sound much to most nations around the World. In fact at last count at least 50 countries were ahead of India in the medal count at London 2012. But a generation of viewers will watch this exploit with a sigh of relief, despondency and hopefulness. TV became popular and affordable in India during the 1982 Asian games. We watched India collect a record haul of 11 golds and then in the 1984 Olympics we watched PT Usha miss the Olympics bronze in the women 400 mts hurdles by the literal cat's whisker - 1/100th of sec. After that every 4 years we would dream of at least one medal in Olympics. In the meantime India's other Asian counterparts improved by leaps and bounds. China improved its tally from a handful of medals to scores, South Korea jumped ahead when it hosted the Games while Japan came down by q...

There seems to be a lot of blaming going on - and the Indian Hockey team is bearing the brunt of it. It makes me angry when the pride of the players is being questioned. It was obvious to anyone that the players played from their gut and played their hearts out. They only looked dejected towards the end of the South Korean match and maybe some parts of the Belgium match. But that is understandable. When you are not winning things rapidly disintegrate and dejection sets in. What clearly was lacking during the initial games was a stratagem. For example, the players seemed to believe that they could out flank and out- attack the Dutch in the first match. They carried on many pointless forays and seemed to be wasting a lot of energy, while the Dutch patiently played a mature game and set up well thought out attacks. The show clearly suggested 1000s of hours of careful planning and execution. The Indiam team seemed to be a bunch of talented hopefuls let loose on the field and each out to ...

Watch the Olympics live streaming free on Youtube - at the official IOC channel. In a historic move - IOC will be providing live coverage of many events for the first time on Youtube. In Beijing - some feeds and clips had been provided online officially. ESPN Star Sports meanwhile will be covering the Olympics live on cable TV in India. For those who dont have cable access - the live streaming of the games on Youtube is a blessing for sports lovers. The IOC channel wil provide 2200 hours of Olympics coverage in 64 countries. There will be many featured interviews of athletes - so one doesnt have to rely on twitter for up-to-date information! Here is the link to the official IOC Olympics channel.

Want to find the latest happenings of the Guangzhou Asian Games? See the latest gold medal tally, latest news from the Guangzhou Asiad, Asian Games 2010 latest news and results at the Guangzhou Asian Games official website in English http://www.gz2010.cn/en Get Live news of India at Asian Games from this Loive Asian Games blog at IBNlive http://ibnlive.in.com/packages/asian-games.html

Image Source: http://www.ndtv.com/news/images/cwg-fullimage/saina-295.jpg As the Commonwealth Games 2010 got under way -  the problems highlighted so graphically by an unenthusiastic World Media fed by an over enhusiastic local media, slowly made way to realities on the Ground. The verdict - The facilities, the village, the food were all upto the mark and in many cases exceptional. The hospitality was incredible as vouched for by many. The preparations were no where near as dismal as projected. The Organizers have done a good enough job - considering India's lack of experience, political bottlenecks, existing poor infrastructure, massive security concerns and a vocal democracy to which every action and spending is answerable. Other Pluses The security aspect of organizing such a huge event is immense. After 26/11 - India was off the lists of many casual tourists. Lets face it - India with its demographics, its proximity to Pakistan is a huge security risk. Kudos ...