The Olympic motto is Citius, Altius, Fortius, Latin for ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger’. Pierre de Coubertin proposed the motto when he created the International Olympic Committee in the 19th Century. Coubertin borrowed the motto from Father Henri Martin Dideono, the headmaster of Arcueil College in Paris, who had first used the words at the opening ceremony of school sports days.
The motto expresses the aspirations of the Olympic Movement, both in athletic and technical terms, and from a moral, physical and educational perspective. The Olympic Games symbolise unity and the exuberance of the human spirit.
The practice of yoga dates back over centuries to ancient India, with a focus on the unification of the mind, body, and spirit through the practice of physical movements, meditation and breathing exercises. Can we not see the similarity of purpose between Yoga and the Olympics?
The issue before us is, how come despite such an ancient tradition of physical-mental coordination the Indian performance at the Olympics is so dismal? What is the use of a 56”chest if the country is placed at No. 71 in the Olympics?
We are perhaps the only country in the world that celebrates sports losses. This time we have had one loss in the finals and five in the semi-finals and there were celebrations galore. The PM has been the main celebrant, every time. Take the case of 10 metre air pistol shooting. The gold medal went to South Korea’s Ye Jin, who set a new Olympic record with 243.2 points. Her compatriot Kim Yeji claimed silver with 241.3 points. Manu Bhaker of India lost out on the top two places and came third for the bronze. And the PM was there congratulating her within moments. The same pattern was followed in Javelin throw where Neeraj Chopra got the silver after losing comprehensively to Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem who hurled the missile to an Olympic record of 92.97 metres to claim the gold. And the PM jumped in the fray to congratulate the loser again!
To add insult to injury Bhaker when asked about the last few moments of the 10m air pistol final claimed: “Honestly, I read a lot of Gita...” (NDTV) What does reading of the Gita have to do with her losing the gold and silver? And why blame the Gita for her failings? Is it not inane?
I wonder what the South Koreans had read to claim the gold and silver. Our coaches must find out, so Manu and others read it before the next competition and secure the gold! Fortuitously, Chopra did not lay the same claim as Bhaker probably because he trains in the West where one only reads the coaching manual! If he had, it is not unlikely that Nadeem might have attributed his win to reading the Koran! To cap it all, the Indian losers have earned much more for their losses than the winners did for their wins in their own countries!
The reality is that in celebrating losers, we are losing the urge to win.
Hockey is our national game at which we flourished as British India, securing gold medals uninterrupted from the 1928 Olympics, continuing post independence; we lost for the first time in the finals at Rome 1960, to the other half of British India. The gold was reclaimed four years later in Tokyo. We have never again entered the finals except in the boycott hit and seriously depleted Moscow Olympics 1980. We reached the nadir failing to qualify for the first time ever, at the Beijing Olympics 2008. Gradually, the game lost its lustre in India, as cricket gained ascendency.
However, a new saviour for hockey has arrived in the form of Naveen Patnaik, the former Chief Minister of Odisha, who took a fancy to the game and created infrastructure and training facilities in his State. The game has seen a resurgence ever since, under his guidance. Twice, over the last two Olympics, India has reached the semi finals in our national game; better days may be ahead.
One cannot forget Vinesh Phogat, who stood up to the BJP MP, the then President of the Wrestling Federation of India, when the wrestlers came out on the streets making serious allegations of sexual harassment against him, thus inviting his ire. Then she stood out at the Olympics as she qualified for the finals only to be disqualified for being overweight, amidst whispers that the scales with the contingent had been maliciously tempered to show her as underweight at training, resulting in being overweight at the official weigh in. Shockingly no action has been taken against her coach, dietician and doctor whose duty it was to manage her weight. Has the country not been deprived of a possible gold due to such dubious alleged manipulations?
The overwhelming majority of the winners are from meat eating/wine drinking societies, as the record shows. We are a society where meat is frowned upon, beef banned and gau mutr recommended. We have a poor athletic record. Is it possible that athletic prowess is linked to what we eat and drink? Is it not time to find out?
The Paris Olympics as we have witnessed were an unqualified success. Neither the President nor PM of France nor the ruling party has taken credit for it. Well, if it was India...! Does this not tell a story?
The BJP came to power promising to restore India’s past glory. In this aspect, it needs to be acknowledged, the government has been eminently successful. Has the performance of our country at the Paris Olympics not taken us to the Bronze Age, notwithstanding the sliver of a silver lining? For us, does the Olympic motto not seem to read Tardius Minus Debiliores?
(Radharao F Gracias is a senior Trial Court
Advocate, a former Independent MLA, a political activist, with a reputation for oratory and interests in history and ornithology)