I have been following the 2008 Beijing Olympics mostly on the Internet than on TV, unlike the last 2 Olympics. Since most sports URLs are blocked at workplace, I rely on non-sports sites to get the information I need. But then, Internet has its own advantages and I have managed to read some very interesting stuff so far.I missed the spectacular Opening Ceremony on TV (but managed to catch some of it on youtube) which, as most people claimed, and rightly so, was one of the best shows on earth ever. But I read mixed reactions - on one hand Shekhar Kapur put it as the greatest live event ever presented on this planet and wondered if India could have done something similar. On the other hand, the Western media went all out to belittle the ceremony by over-emphasizing on the lip-syncing of Chinese national anthem by Lin Miaoke and dubbing the footprint fireworks shown to TV audience as "fake". I particularly resented the condescending article by one Mr. James
Reynolds who writes in BBC's Olympics blog. I don't advocate beauty over talent and personally feel that Yang Peiyi (the actual singer of the anthem during Opening Ceremony) was no less cute than Lin herself, but we should not let these hiccups steal the thunder from China. They did put up a great show and we should applaud and appreciate all the hard work that was put in to make it such a flawless event. The dust on opening ceremony doesn't seem to settle down though - now there is this hype about soldiers who were operating the centerpiece scrolls wore nappies during the Opening Cermony as they were not allowed to take any breaks.Let alone the Western media, even their Indian counterparts were not far behind when it came to belittling someone's achievements. After the initial euphoria of Abhinav Bindra winning the first ever individual gold medal died down, a lot was discussed about his keeping a water balloon/bottle on his maid's head (when Abhinav was all of 5 years of age) and shooting. Not to mention about his super-rich dad who spent all the money he could to make Bindra prepare well for the Olympics. Talking about India's performance in Beijing Olympics, I ran into this Wikipedia article that gives very detailed account of performance of Indian sportspersons in all events. It was really disheartening to see so many 'did not advance' entries. But then there were two boxing quarter-finals scheduled for the 20th where Indian boxers Jitender Kumar & Vijender Kumar (in flyweight and middleweight categories, respectively) have still kept India's hopes alive. I, for sure, will be following their matches tomorrow and rooting for them.
Just out of curiosity I had checked India's performance (links available in Wikipedia article's sidebar) in all the Olympics it has participated since 1900 (first as British India and later as independent India), the medal count hasn't gone above 2. There were many years when no medals were won, though. I am just hoping that these two boxers from Haryana break this jinx of two and add 2 more medals for the country..
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