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.