Do the Gold!

She was practicing Table Tennis in the garage of her home. He was shooting his target to glory with his portable shooting practice kit in his hotel room- even while stealing some time away from his cousin's reception evening below. The Men's Hockey Team was sweating it out on the field, practicing hard. She was wrestling in her akhada, her sisters egging her on with better techniques to defeat the opponents. He was bettering his badminton shots at the P. Gopichand Academy under the lights. She was boxing against all odds, like there was no tomorrow, with single focus. He was weightlifting unimaginably heavy weights in a private gym, for the government never kept its promise to give him a world class gym inspite of him being a previous gold medal winner. She was vaulting with all her gymnastic grace and strength to perfect her art. He was throwing the discus again and again, struggling to better his best throw....

........And it rained that night.

Yes. It rained. It felt like their sweat was mixing with the rain water and liberating them. Giving them fresh energy. More strength to wrestle harder. To fight the Judo better. To hit every badminton shot with more force. To lift the extra 2 kgs beyond 300. To drive that hockey stick to hit more goals. To shoot to ever more perfection. To achieve the ultimate. To create history.

To do the Gold....


And Gold they did! And how! Silver and Bronze as well! Proud of each of you our great Indian sportsmen and women! XXth Commonwealth Games at Glasgow has been a jubilation! India stands at a proud 5th in the Medals Tally! Yet this compares poorly with XIXth CWG when India was the host and had come 2nd with a whopping tally of 101 medals, and a jaw-dropping 38 Golds!

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Australia (AUS)	74	55	48	177
2	India (IND)	38	27	36	101
3	England (ENG)	37	59	46	142
4	Canada (CAN)	26	17	32	75
5	Kenya (KEN)	12	11	10	33
5	South Africa (RSA)	12	11	10	33
7	Malaysia (MAS)	12	10	13	35
8	Singapore (SIN)	11	11	9	31
9	Nigeria (NGR)	11	10	14	35
10	Scotland (SCO)	9	10	7	26

Still, this time around several historic feats have been achieved- 20-year-old Dipa Karmakar being first Indian woman ever to win a medal in gymnastics; Parupalli Kashyap winning Gold in men's singles badminton- a feat occuring after 32 years; Joshna Chinappa-Dipika Pallikal winning Gold in Women's Squash Doubles; Four Judo medals for India in this newly introduced sport; Abhinav Bindra winning 4th consecutive Gold Medal in shooting and also announcing this was his last CWG; and lots more!

I only wish every Silver Medallist pushed harder- for majority of these 30 silvers could have been Golds. Just mark the difference between number of golds and silvers for the top 10 in below medals tally. Either nations have won more golds than silvers [Healthiest sign showed here by Canada- winning double the number of golds compared to silvers!] or their number of golds and silvers are equal/almost equal [also a healthy sign of do-or-die sporting spirit].

Sadly, India loses out here winning only half the number of golds than silvers, giving an impression that several of our sportspeople somehow settled for second best after qualifying for final rounds. Is it that they lose the battle of nerves in the final? Or is it plain complacency? Or is it playing away from home [CWG Delhi was a complete contrasting performance!] ? Our coaches and sportspeople now have to focus on finding answers to these questions and training harder to not just dominate physically, but win the final battle of nerves.... to DO THE GOLD always- in whichever final they enter! Hoping for such top class mental strength training so that India can dominate in future- in every CWG, Asian Games, World Championships and Olympics! :)

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	England [ENG]	58	58	56	172
2	Australia [AUS]	48	42	46	136
3	Canada [CAN]	32	16	34	82
4	Scotland [SCO]	19	15	19	53
5	India [IND]	15	30	19	64
6	New Zealand [NZL]	14	13	17	44
7	South Africa [RSA]	13	10	17	40
8	Nigeria [NGR]	11	11	14	36
9	Kenya [KEN]	10	10	5	25
10	Jamaica [JAM]	10	4	8	22

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.
and
also links to letter 'D' for ABC Wednesday!