The Hindu : Sport : Rathore's achievement — silver lining for Indian sport

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 29, 2004

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Sport - Sports : General

Rathore's achievement — silver lining for Indian sport

NEW DELHI, DEC. 28. Success juxtaposed with defeat, disappointment with elation and despair with hope as Indian sports traversed yet another eventful year in 2004.

If Major Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore rewrote history books to win India's first ever-individual silver medal in Olympics, the mutli-discipline extravaganza also bared the unpleasant truth that none other of the country's athletes in the 'strong' 75-member contingent could make a mark on the big stage.

Adding insult to injury was the shocking revelation that two of the country's weightlifters had been caught for doping.

Long jumper Anju Bobby George disappointed at the Athens Games. She finished a distant sixth. So did shooter Anjali Vedpathak Bhagwat and `Indian Express' Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes, who could not manage even a bronze leave alone the gold that they had promised.

Had it not been for Rathore's 170/200 in the double trap final, India would have really cut a sorry figure and left sports administrators with a lot of explaining to do.

Ups and downs

Cricket had its share of ups and downs as well. India reached a rare high of beating Pakistan in Pakistan in both the one-day (3-2) and the Test series (2-1) and had success against Australia in their own backyard. They also managed to beat South Africa (1-0) in a short two-match rubber to add to their list of Test achievements.

But the master batsman Sachin Tendulkar shrugged off all speculation and premature anxieties to make a determined comeback, which saw him equal Sunil Gavaskar's world record tally of 34 Test centuries.

Although there were many records broken and created by the Indians, the ones that were most remarkable were Anil Kumble overtaking Kapil Dev (434) as India's highest wicket-taker and Virender Sehwag (309) becoming the first ever from the country to score a triple-century.

Controversy was chiefly limited to Maharashtra batsman Abhijit Kale being held guilty for trying to bribe selectors and the BCCI elections that were still hanging fire in Supreme Court.

A new low

The country plummeted to new depths in hockey, which did not yield even a single title but controversies it did in galore.

The inexplicable decisions of the IHF bosses left fans and well-wishers wondering where the national game was headed to.

The sacking of coach Rajinder Singh, humiliation meted out to players of the stature of Dhanraj Pillay, appointment and then (imminent) removal of country's first foreign coach were some of the developments that the game could have done very well without.

Anand, the genius

The game that brought cheers nationwide was chess. Viswanathan Anand clinched his third Chess Oscar to reassert his supremacy on the chequered board.

That the game was in safe young hands was proved by the triumph of P. Harikrishna in the world junior championship. Grandmaster Koneru Humpy finished with a silver in the women's World Championship in Elista, Repubic of Kalmykia, in June while 13-year-old Dronavalli Harika became the youngest Asian to earn the Woman Grandmaster norm.

Sania shines

Indian Tennis belonged to 18-year-old star Sania Mirza who won a number of titles in tournaments of varying grades, mostly outside India, to break into the top 200.

The year could not have been worse for football in the country which had the ill luck of seeing talented Brazilian striker Christiano Junior meeting a cruel end during the final of the Federation Cup in Bangalore. The ifs-and-buts notwithstanding, it is one tragedy that would rankle all concerned for years to come.

Randhawa impresses

In the golfing greens, the Indians continued to make their presence felt, the highlight being Jyoti Randhawa's win at the season-ending Volvo Masters of Asia in Kuala Lumpur this month.

The first gold

Indian paddlers also impressed as the men's team beat favourite and nine-time winners England 3-1 to win their first ever-gold medal at the Commonwealth Table Tennis Championship in Kuala Lumpur in June. — PTI

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