The dust has settled in Rio and now we need to learn about moving forward and constantly improving. I am worried that we will raise a toast to these wonderful women athletes and then forget about them and their hard work. That should not happen.
The medal-triumphs of P. V. Sindhu (silver) and Sakshi Malik (bronze) in the women’s badminton and wrestling 58 kg category respectively, is a good trend, I must say.
It is especially heartening that Sakshi is from a State like Haryana, which is a male dominated State with a skewed male-female sex ratio (Haryana has a poor ratio of 879 females per 1000 males). Hailing from such a State, I am thrilled that Sakshi came to the fore, with obvious encouragement from her parents and well-wishers, and through her own drive, ambition and grit, wrested a medal. The manner in which she defeated Kyrgyzstan’s Aisuluu Tynybekova 8-5 in the bronze medal bout after trailing 0-5, speaks volumes about her tenacity.
SINDHU TOO NEVER GAVE UP and she competed hard till the very end in the final against Spain’s Carolina Marin. She is from the South, where relatively girls do get better encouragement to excel in sports and so credit is also due to her parents and coach (Pullela) Gopichand.
Surely the sporting culture in the country is changing and more so with regard to women athletes. Sindhu and Sakshi provided the silver-lining, while to be honest it has been a below-par Olympics as far as the Indian contingent is concerned. Be it hockey or shooting, we did not perform up to expectations.
The two medals from our women have left the entire nation gaga and truth be told, we are all hungry for more medals. It is no longer about participation, it is also about winning. Sindhu and Sakshi deserve all the accolades. If there were two traits that distinguished them, it is grit and determination. Our biggest stars failed but these two excelled and they are truly an inspiration to our emerging athletes, be it male or female.
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