Olympics: An Anomaly

Beijing Olympics saw many a great sporting feats, but none greater than the jaw-dropping, human-ability-defying act from the Jamaican, who goes by the name of Usain Bolt. He completed his 100m sprint in 9.59 seconds, something unthinkable for people and sports commentators alike. Beyond all the reams of praises written for Bolt, something quite jarring remains hidden. When was the last time an athlete who wasn't a black won a 100m sprint? Not in the recent times, would probably be the answer.

Michael Phelps is to the swimming pool, What Usain Bolt is to the track and field events. Never mind his bong-blowing picture, this guy is a phenomena. He won about 8 medals in the Beijing Olympics and 7 of them were gold. He along with Bolt were the stories of the Olympics. They represent the pinnacle of human evolution and abilities. But something equally jarring is lodged in this story too. When was the last time you saw a black athlete compete in a pool, let alone be successful. The pool is all white. And the answer to this question remains the same as above.

The answers lie in the science of genes and chromosomes to a certain extent. The bio-mechanic specialists, after a lot of research i presume, have found out that a white Caucasian male has a stringer upper body and a black male has a stronger lower torso. Now, in Olympic sports, where fraction of seconds separates the winner from the also-rans, genetics give these athletes the edge. This probably explains why a track and field event is predominantly black while a swimming pool hitherto witnesses black skin.

But if African origin athletes and white Caucasian males are so physiologically adept at conventional sport how come China topped the medal tally in Beijing Olympics with its native athletes? Well the answer to that is: Chinese are smart. Chinese know that the events, where its all about muscular strength they would not be able to overcome the more suited races of athletes. They can always pitch in with a surprise performance in the track and field and even swimming, but they realize that to dominate the world they will have to pick and choose events that suit their physicality better. They chose sports like Badminton, Ping-Pong, Gymnastics, synchronized diving, Shooting and Archery etc. These sports replace the brute muscular force and testosterone driven nature of conventional sports by a generous sprinkling of skill. You still need to work hard and have a world class infrastructure for producing Olympic champions, but its much easier to achieve when the playing field suits you a little more. In sports like gymnastics and synchronized diving, you need to have lower center of gravity and chines have a genetic advantage in that regard. So, by Chinese have managed to go around the system and have come on the top of the world even without so much as registering their presence in more conventional sporting events. They have indeed played it smart.

Does the China story present an inspiration for depressingly sagging Indian Olympic efforts? Maybe it does. One option for us to go the China way by by identifying sports where our physical attributes can be leveraged and champions can be made. But, in India, pumping money into sports infrastructure wouldn't guarantee any real work on ground and most of the money would just evaporate in thin air. The preparation for Commonwealth is a case in point. And even if we did have a mechanism to account for money pumped in sports infrastructure, it would be grossly insensitive for us to do so with millions of our people going hungry every day. So, do we keep celebrating athletes whose claim to fame is that they lost out on a bronze medal in some ancient Olympic games?

Well, there is another way to treat the situation. But, before that we have to unearth and come to terms with the truth about Olympics and its nature. Olympics originated in Europe, Greece to be precise, and has taken off from then as a global event for showcasing sporting spirit and all that jazz. The kind of sports that comprise conventional sports in Olympics are distinctly of the nature that favors the physicality and different other physiological attributes of the Europeans. The Black have also come to dominate certain segments of event due to their apparent superior physical make that comes from different genealogy. Even with hockey, till the time it was more a skill game we were the world beaters, then suddenly the synthetic turf came comes into picture and turned the table on us. Now hockey requires speed and power in abundance. Anyone who saw the India-Australia hockey match in the recently concluded World Cup would vouch that the match was so hopelessly one-sided because the Australians just outran the Indians. So , why do we compete in the events where they naturally hold the edge?? And why do we berate ourselves and deem our population as physically inferior for something thats not in our control??? We live in a tropical country and have a different dietary pattern from those of the Europeans and other races. We are just made differently. Those sports aren't a part of our lifestyle and haven't been so since the beginning of the civilization. Hence i call the Olympics an anomaly. Pitting people against other people who have a natural advantage over others and then decide the winner. Well, thats not done. And going the Chinese way is not an option either.

We can have our own games. Our own Olympics. Where the games that are part of lifestyle and suit us physically would be showcased. These sports would not only ensure a mass participation but a more professional approach to the sports when so much of prestige and money is involved.

Let us have Kite-Flying as a particular event. We would also have top spinning tournaments. Marble and different formats related to it can also be full fledged tournaments. How about another event, where participants would climb up a coconut tree and puck coconuts from there. One who does this in least time wins. There can be a thousand such events in our own Olympics.

The point is that we don't really have to adhere to the conventional thinking and be a slave of our history. We need to take charge and change the script. And no better way than getting rid of this anomaly called Olympics.

Counter Terrorism

The whole Sania-Shoaib marriage controversy resembles a lot like Sania Mirza's career itself. Lots of hype on a stupid and ridiculous premise. When she first broke through onto the tennis scene, she was called the great Indian hope for a grand slam. But, it was pretty clear early on that she was, at best, an average player who didn't really have the discipline or focus to make the most of her inadequate talent. The media however always found words like tennis sensation or tennis ace to describe her much to the consternation of true sports fan. To her credit, she did win Hyderabad open some millions of years ago, where, it must be mentioned, she was the top seeded player. Let's not even talk about wins in mixed doubles in slams cause every self respecting sports buff knows that these events are more of showpiece events, where people get to see some yesteryear players like Navratilova, Steffi Graff and the likes in action. Well its another debate that Leander Pace has made a career out of playing and quite often, winning these events.

However this piece is not about Sania and her mediocrity and how we tend to celebrate mediocrity in various walks of our life. This is about taking revenge from Pakistan. This is about a strategy that would payback Pakistan for its sponsored terrorism directed towards us. How?? you ask??? Well, read on...

Now that we have established that Sania Mirza is a good-for-nothing sportswoman, whose only aim was to grab as many eyeballs as she could in her playing days. She astutely knew that her playing days were numbered and she needed to make as many bucks as possible through advertisements. She succeeded. Now she is marrying a Pakistani and might even settle in Pakistan. I would love it if she did. There are whole bunch of other people in our country that we would love to see do their stuff in Pakistan cause we have experienced how mind numbing that experience could be.

So here is my plan. We identify people who have F*&#@d with our minds day in and day out. Those people who have destroyed a whole generation through television sets and other modes of communication, must be put in Pakistan for this mission. Get them married to Pakistanis or send them in the garb of promoting culture and peace to Pakistan and they will wreak such havoc in Pakistan that even the Taliban Jehadis will be ashamed of their destructive abilities.

First among these lethal human bombs would be poeple who have had their Swayamvars on TV including the participants. Lets ship them all to Lahore and telecast 3 episodes back to back everyday of these swayamvars on their national TV. After each episode, make sure that we telecast Rakhi Sawant's interview where she pretends to be shy. Then we telecast an interview of Rahul Mahajan where he claims to be pious and drug-free.

If that doesnt destroy Lahore and other cities of Pakistan, we send all the people involved in making saas-bahu serials. Right from Tulsi and Parvati to the cameraman and background score, we just pound Pakistan with episodes after episodes of sari clad women crying hoarse over something that would remain a mystery even after years.

Another bunch of people who could be devastating in their effect when they do their stuff are all the flop sons and daughters of bollywood heroes. Starting from Abhishek Bacchan to Uday Chopra and from Tusssshaaar Kapoor to Esha Deol. Unleash them on Pakistan. They would subject Pakistanis to movies like Drona and Pyaar Impossible and by the time Pakistani Public comes out of theaters on Fridays, they would have been robbed of their ability to think and comprehend. They would be walking the streets of Pakistan like dumbf@#k Zombies.

There is no dearth of potential human bomb talents here. All we need is to identify them and let them explode across the border. We have suffered long and hard, now its their turn.

Please do suggest other names who could be added to the list of our weapons against our enemy in your comments if you agree with the plan.

Till then

Adios.