Hoping For Smooth Sailing

India Look To Make A Mark At Tokyo Games With Young Guns Leading Early Charge To Ignite The Spark

- Biju BabuCyriac

Faster, higher stronger — together. The International Olympic Committee couldn’t have coined a more relevant version of its motto amid the Covid-19 pandemic, a clarion call for solidarity and message to the world that sport has united against a microscopic enemy.

Over 11,000 athletes who have gathered in Tokyo for the Olympics have endorsed it as has the 120-strong Indian contingent, which, much like in the past, is licking its lips in anticipation. After months of training despite pain, isolation, self-doubt and a sense of hopelessness, the next two weeks present the best opportunity for the country’s athletes to prove that the raging virus can penetrate walls, invade training centres but can never destroy their dreams.

It’s mind over matter then for the athletes. It could be more than that for the country’s shooters, who find themselves with the responsibility of inspiring a new generation of stars not just content with an Olympian tag.

Two medal events — men’s 10m air pistol and women’s 10m air rifle — on Saturday at the Asaka shooting range will provide the foretaste of things to come.

Will Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, who broke the glass ceiling with a double trap silver in Athens 2004, an event that is not in Tokyo, and the 2008 Beijing gold medallist Abhinav Bindra, continue to inspire the shooters or will India’s fearless young crop look inward for the spark?

Either way, the shooters will galvanise an equally determined set of wrestlers, boxers, shuttlers and archers on whom India’s medal hopes rest. For the others in the 127-member contingent, Tokyo, which is hosting the Olympics after 57 years, is the best opportunity to showcase their growing clout in the world of sports.

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