OLYMPICS

By Sanjay Ram

The greatest sporting event in the world, where athletes come to test their abilities and compete against the world for a medal, this medal is the symbol of hard work, dedication, and so many sacrifices by the sportsperson. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is responsible for planning, allocating the city, and supervising by sub-ordinating 3 events which are the Summer, Winter and Paralympics with different organizations which is the governing body to their respective bodies such as the FIFA for football. Ever since 1896 the summer Olympics have been conducted every 4 years except 1940 and 1944 due to WWII, the winter Olympics started in 1924 and the Paralympics which is conducted along with Summer and Winter is conducted every 2 years for disabled people started in 1960, the idea behind Paralympics was a gathering for British veterans in World war. But Olympics is conducted by the city allocated by the IOC which means the entire amount of money needed to conduct the Olympics has to be taken by the city/country and IOC just makes the budget as the city is chosen by an auction, with the highest bid the city is decided.

Summer Olympic Games

The summer Olympic games are conducted in a leap year, generally, people tend to refer Summer Olympics as the Olympics as most of the countries in the world send their athletes to conquer the medal tally. The viewership in the summer Olympics is the most as the sports played are more accessible to common people than the games in the Winter Olympics. The reason for such high viewership is because all the major sports have their tournaments like Football, tennis, basketball, volleyball, table tennis, badminton and hockey which attracts almost everyone to watch their favourite sport where they can support their favourite team or player. A total of 336 events are conducted in the Olympics. Multi-Sports such as Swimming and Athletics have 63 events combined. Countries like Kenya, Jamaica and Ethiopia who have a poor economy tend to win many medals in Athletics, as much money isn’t required for the sport, and they have the advantage in their genes. In running, Jamaica has dominated the sport as they have the fastest man in the world Usain bolt and long races like steeplechase and Marathon Kenya and Ethiopia dominate. Developed countries always top the medal table as they have a stable economy. They allocate a sports budget used for the Facility, nutrition, and training of the athlete. For example, it takes the United Kingdom 5.5 million euros in the Rio Olympics (approx. 48 crores) to win a medal! A total of 345 million euros was the budget for Tokyo Olympics! Countries like the USA, Russia, China, United Kingdom and Germany are always in the top 10 of the medal table.

Winter Olympic games

Though a smaller number of events, participating countries and viewership compared to the summer Olympics, the cost to conduct the winter Olympics is more than the summer! A total of 92 countries competes for 102 events, the difference in summer and winter is of 2 years. Winter Olympics have only been conducted in 3 continents and 12 countries as economically, it’s not useful to conduct them. Ice hockey, Skiing, curling, figure skating and snowboarding are popular events in the winter Olympics.

Paralympics

As the name suggests, for physically disabled people both summer and winter are conducted. The Paralympics starts right after the completion of the respective Olympics. A total of 159 countries participated in the Rio Paralympics which featured 22 sports with 4328 athletes. In the recent winter Paralympic which was held in 2018, a total of 49 nations sent 569 athletes to compete in 80 events (6 sports). The Paralympics is a great initiative for physically disabled people as it gives them the motive to succeed there have been many athletes over the years who gave up on their life after being Physically disabled but Paralympics became a ray of hope for them, it helped them to run their household

India at the Olympics

India first participated in the Olympics in 1900 when it was under British rule where Norman Pritchard became the first athlete to win a medal. From 1920 India have been consistently sending athletes for the Olympic games. Hockey was dominated by India from 1928 to 1980 India won 11 medals 8 of them being Gold! India has good strength in Hockey, Boxing, Badminton, Shooting, Weightlifting, and wrestling. With a 1.4 billion population India has underperformed in the Olympics. Till 2020 India managed only to win 28 medals which is equal to the number of medals won by American swimmer Michael Phillips but Phillips beating the entire country as he has 23 Gold medals, and the medal tally depends upon Gold.

Tokyo 2020 became the best Olympics for India winning 7 medals in total including a gold,2 silver and 4 bronze, India placed at 48 th in the medal tally, this became a historic Olympic, not because of the medal tally but because the largest contingent of 119 athletes was sent and a gold medal in the Javelin throw. But this medal tally has not only improved but the performance of athletes was phenomenal many times we lost in knockouts which made us lose the medal by a whisker. Sports like Archery, Golf and discus throw and became a talking point rather than the usual sports though we didn’t win in these 3 sports, a ray of hope is there for future.