Friday, August 17, 2012

Olympics and my Ignorance

Considering the cynosure corned by cricket in our country and relative reticence for the rest, the interest in social/mainstream media covering Olympics was definitely remarkable. It brought to notice some of the greatest athletes of our times, enlarged the circumference of our scope which had been, in a way, circumscribed by Cricket, Tennis, Football.  There were some who knocked on the door of the greatest ever, at least in their respective sports.

The discussion on the greatest ever sportsperson would be incomplete without the names of Phelps or Bolt in it. Just for the record, Phelps has a total of 22 Olympic medals including 18 Golds which includes the successful defense of the Gold medal in 4 events in 3 Olympics.  His individual medal tally is better than 105 countries out of a total of 144 countries that have ever participated in the Summer Olympic games (Interesting Article here). Usain Bolt has done an abridged version of the same in the toughest of Sports - defending the Gold medal in 3 sprint events; it is also noteworthy that in the last 4 years, Usain Bolt has come first in every major race he has competed and completed (excluding one disqualified start).

The local interest has also been rising with India doubling their medal tally which is a brilliant outcome for our contingent notwithstanding the 1.2 Billion population argument (Interesting Article here). 

When I went for the eye check-up two years back and figured out my eyes had a decent number, the doctor told "Young man, you didn't know what you had been missing".  I got the same feeling about my own assessment of great sportspersons, after this Olympics. கற்றது கை அளவு, கல்லாதது உலகளவு.

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