Prima in Indus! Cathedral School Stamp to be released by the President today.

The 19th Common Wealth Games - the way forward for India?

Last evening I watched Prince Edward, patron of the Commonwealth Games Federation, formally declare the 19th CWG closed. Before that, The Commonwealth Games Federation President Michael Fennell paid handsome tributes to Delhi for "delivering an exceptional Games".

I had been tracking the slow and lacklustre progress of the Delhi CWG infrastructure development over the past 7-8 years since the Chief Executive Officer of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Mr David (Sandy) Hollway first visited Mumbai and discussed the subject with Indian Industry. All said and done Indian athletes and sports persons came out with flying colors. The way forward will require more sports infrastructure to be set up all over India. Just Delhi is not enough.

At a meeting with the London Business School in Mumbai last month, Mr. Nirmalya Kumar, Professor Of Marketing, disagreed with me that Indian Sports and Athletics had globalised. He said that India had not made its mark on the world map in this sphere so far. I hope that my stand is now vindicated.

• India finished a historic second in the CWG Gold Medal haul with 38 against UK's 37 only.
• India finished 3rd in the overall medals tally with 101, being a record medal haul of 38 gold, 27 silver and 36 bronze medals.
• The main haul of these 101 medals came from the shooting range, wrestling mat, boxing ring, archery range and, to everyone’s surprise, the track and field events, to provide the country with a reasonably strong sports foundation on which to build a more powerful edifice on.
• Rifle-shooting ace Gagan Narang, from Hyderabad won Gold
• Teenage woman archer Deepika Kumari, daughter of an auto-rickshaw driver won Gold
• Haryana provided India’s first track and field event gold medal in 52 years when Krishna Poonia led a clean sweep of the women’s discus throw, Harwant Kaur and Seema Antil winning the silver and bronze.
• The women’s 4x400m relay squad also struck an unexpected gold. The team comprised of Manjeet Kaur, Sini Jose, Ashwini Akkunji and Mandeep Kaur.
• Saina Nehwal, brought down two gold medals which were vital to help India push England to the third place
• The men’s hockey team made history by making it to the final for the first time and won silver.
• The wrestling contingent were not far behind winning 19 medals in the 21 designated event. Among the 19 medals, there were 10 gold, five silver and four bronze medals.
• Sushil Kumar won gold
• The women wrestlers participating in the Games for the first time stole the show with a memorable performance. In the six events for women, India won three gold, two silver and a bronze medal to show their supremacy in the freestyle category. The trio of Alka Tomar, Geeta and Anita won their final bouts with ease, while Babita Kumari and Nirmala Devi won silver.
• Krishna Poonia created history by breaking India’s 52-year-old Commonwealth Games gold medal jinx by winning the yellow metal in women’s discus throw with the event also setting a record of first with the country sweeping all the medals. Harwant Kaur and Seema Antil bagged silver and bronze respectively. Poonia also became the first Indian woman to bag a Commonwealth Games gold after ‘Flying Sikh’ Milkha Singh won the men’s 440 yards race in 1958 edition in Cardiff, Wales.
• Kavita Raut, a 25-year-old girl from a poor family at a non-descript village at Nashik district in Maharashtra who opened the medal floodgates for India by winning a bronze in women’s 10,000m race and she later said she took to athletics as she can run barefooted.
• Boxers won three titles - through Suranjoy Singh (52kg), Manoj Kumar (64kg) and Paramjeet Samota (+91kg). The four bronze medals were won by Amandeep Singh (49kg), Jai Bhagwan (60kg), Dilbag Singh (69kg) and Vijender Singh (75kg).

We have beaten Australia at Cricket. Our golfers are doing well too. When officials from the Ministry of Youth Affairs &  Sports of India visited Mumbai on July 30th, 2010, to promote Delhi's newly developed sports infrastructure and stadiums for post CWG usage opportunities, I couldn't help but recollect Madhu Sapre's response at the 41st Miss Universe pageant, which was held at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center, Bangkok, Thailand on May 8, 1992.







The response was unconventional and probably did cost her the crown. But then has India learn't its lesson? Will our leaders deliver or then will Madhu's remain a dream? In her own words on leadership appreciation.....







......Is the present Mrs. Gandhi listening?