GK
Updates-2008
Beijing Olympics: A golden fifty for host China
China proved an acquisitive first time Olympic host, topping the gold-medal chart with one of
the most dominating performances ever. Abhinav Bindra did India proud by winning the
country's first ever individual gold and ended a 28-year gold medal drought
China's show all the way
China spent seven years planning for this event. It must be relieved that these Olympics are
being hailed as both a sporting and an operational success. Worries about air pollution, protesters
and media freedom were eventually overshadowed by what went on in the sporting arenas. At
the closing ceremony the International Olympic Committee President, Jacques Rogge, said they
had been "truly exceptional games".
The show went on without a blemish. The future hosts, notably London, have a task in hand to
match China's exemplary organisation. The world's oldest civilisation has set a new benchmark.
From a swanky airport to futuristic stadiums, China had everything ready in time for the big
party.
China's haul of 51 gold medals was the largest since the Soviet Union won 55 in Seoul in 1988.
Fielding athletes groomed since child hood in sports academies, it won medals in 25 different
sports, including its first ever in sailing, beach volleyball and field hockey.
China's rich collection of 51 gold medals came in 17 disciplines. The bulk of the share was from
artistic gymnastics (9), weightlifting (8), diving (7), shooting (5), table tennis (4), badminton (3)
and judo (3). The Chinese found heroes and heroines from every quarter and every discipline.
Debatable
Not since 1936, when Nazi Germany prevailed at the Berlin Olympics, had a country other than
the US or the Soviet Union/Russia led the gold medal list.
The United States trailed well behind the Chinese in golds with 36, the first time since 1992 it
didn't lead the category. But the Americans did break their own mark for total medals in a nonboycotted
Olympics; they won 110 in all, two more than their previous high set in 1992 and 10
ahead of China's overall tally this year. Britain, getting an early jump on its host role for the
2012 Summer Games, had its best Olympics in a century with 19 gold medals - good for fourth
place behind the Russians.
The U.S. won gold medals in 15 disciplines, and the lion's share of 12 came from the pool. Apart
from the seven athletics gold medals, the U.S. did not win more than two gold medals in any
sport. The men won 20 gold and the women 15, while one medal came in a mixed event.
India's distinction
India also earned the distinction of winning more than two medals from a single edition of the
Games for the first time in history and its first ever individual gold, for a total of three. India
finished 50th among the 87 countries which won at least one medal. From two medals in 1952,
India has indeed come a long way!
Winners and achievers
A debate is bound to ensue whether eight-gold winning American swimmer Michael Phelps was
the 'athlete of the Games' or was it the sprint double winner from Jamaica, Usain Bolt, who set
two individual world records and was part of the shorter relay team of his country which bettered
another world record. Phelps now has 14 Olympic gold medals.
Sports analysts say Michael Phelps was the unrivalled star of the Beijing Games. The Baltimore
Bullet, raised by a single mother, had to overcome attention deficiency syndrome as a young
boy. He drew everyone's attention at Beijing with his superlative achievement. Phelps has
proved that 'Impossible is nothing' is not just a catch phrase of Adidas.
If Phelps was the master of the pool Usain Bolt was the sultan of the track. The Jamaican ran an
almost casual last 20 metres yet broke the 100 meter world record and won the gold medal in the
most fiercely competitive track and field event. We will argue forever about how fast he might
have gone had he not felt the incontinent need to celebrate his victory in the 100 metres with 20
metres still to run. He followed this up a world record and gold medal in 200 metres and another
one in 4X100 metre relay race.
India at Beijing
After Bindra's gold, it was almost curtains down on Indian performance. The country had never
won two individual medals in any Olympics and most of the promising group events were over.
Participants in athletics had failed to progress beyond the primary stage. But then came the
wrestling and boxing medals and India broke its 56-year-old jinx of not winning more than one
medal in an Olympics.
Sushil Kumar's unexpected bronze in the 66kg freestyle category was India's second wrestling
medal after K.D. Jadhav's bronze in Helsinki 1952-India won the hockey gold, too, that year.
Sushil was mostly written off after his initial loss to Ukraine's Andriy Stadnik, the silver
medallist. The Delhi wrestler's medal came in the repêchage rounds. In Olympic wrestling, the
repêchage rounds are given only to participants who lost to the finalists in the initial rounds.
Hence, two bronzes were awarded. In a span of 65 minutes, Sushil won three matches. The
second bronze went to a Georgian wrestler and the gold to Turkey's Ramazan Sahin.
The same day, middleweight boxer Vijender Kumar punched his way through Ecuador's Carlos
Gongora and became the first Indian boxer to enter Olympic semifinals, and thus win a medal. In
the semifinals lost to Emilio Correa Bayeaux from Cuba.
IPL Players' Auction: Money matters
The availability of players had a crucial role in determining the bid price. Also important were
factors like marketability of the player and his individual cricketing capability
Cricket's richest body BCCI has carried out its first-ever auction of players among the eight
teams, which will play in the newly launched Indian Premier League (IPL). The Board for
Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) had put 77 players under the hammer for IPL teams owned by
businessmen, film stars and other celebrities to bid and build their teams for the season that will
begin in April.
The frenzied buying of players in competitive bidding opened up a path to riches that only a few
individual cricketers have ever seen in their careers. The auction got off to a rousing start when
Chennai Super Kings, owned by India Cements promoter N Srinivasan offered an eye-popping
$1.5 million for Dhoni. The Hyderabad team owned by Deccan Chronicle picked Australian allrounder
Andrew Symonds for $1.35 million, the second highest tag in the auction.
Sachin Tendulkar of Mumbai, Rahul Dravid of Bangalore, Sourav Ganguly of Kolkata, Virender
Sehwag of Delhi and Yuvraj Singh of Mohali, who had been given "iconic status" and kept out
of the auction, will be paid 15 percent more than the highest paid cricketer in their respective
home teams. Even then, Dhoni walked away with a higher price tag than any of them. While
some players went for prices much higher than their base value, some failed to garner a
premium. Ricky Ponting was bought by Kolkata, co-owned by Shah Rukh Khan, for $400,000.
Brett Lee (Mohali) did better at $900,000.
Availability of the players was an important determinant for the final payouts. The franchisees
had been informed about the availability of the various players before the auction. Andrew
Symonds was not playing the Pakistan tour that was clashing with IPL tournament matches. This
prompted the franchisees to increase the amount they were willing to pay for signing him up.
In all, 14 matches are to be played by each of the players in the team. The team that reaches the
semi-finals and finals would play an extra two. Ponting is to miss four matches because of the
Pakistan tour and, because of the England tour, another two matches. So he would be available
for eight out of 14 matches. Most Indian and Sri Lankan players are available for the entire
tournament and, hence, their bid amounts were justified.
Notable absentees from the huge platform of foreign players auctioned were the Englishmen. It
is their contention that playing for the country is paramount and that no amount of money is
going to lure them. It will be interesting to see how long the English can resist the lure of the
lucre. The English may be staying away now because the April-May schedule interferes with
county cricket.
The franchisees will get the highest share of TV sponsorship fees (80 percent for the first five
years, 60 percent for the next five) and the title sponsorship fee (60 percent) which is to be paid
by DLF. Thus, each franchisee stands to get a guaranteed share of between $80 million and $100
million over 10 years. The team owners also get access to all on-ground and local revenues as
well as the obvious branding opportunities, all of which taken together should be high enough to
cover the cost of players' fees.
Attracting large TV audiences could be a big challenge for Sony Entertainment Television (SET)
and Singapore-based World Sports Group who have paid a whopping $ 918 million for telecast
rights in a 10-year deal.
If ratings are high then the next round of bidding could see even higher prices. Players can be
bought and sold after February 2009.
Cricket is yet to command fan following beyond the national teams. The scenario is different in
case of soccer where clubs like Real Madrid and Manchester United command global fan
followings. Soccer is a sport controlled by inter-club league priorities throughout the planet.
Cricket's structure is different, heavily dependent as it is on international games in the form of
Tests and ODIs.
India triumph down under
India's tour of Australia, repeatedly in media glare with controversies on and off the field, ended
on a happy note when Mahendra Dhoni's youthful side got the better of their experienced hosts
in the second final at Brisbane, Gabba in a spectacular fashion to win the Commonwealth Bank
Series. India had last won an important limited-overs series in Australia 23 years ago. India's
win of the CB series was nothing short of astounding. Fans had little hope when India lost two of
their first three games in the series, including one against Sri Lanka. But the team battled back to
pip Sri Lanka for a place in the best-of-three finals series.
The nine-run margin does not reflect the full story as Australia were on the back foot right from
the start after India had posted 258, riding on Sachin Tendulkar's 91. Pace bowler Praveen
Kumar swung the ball both ways to remove the top three batsmen-Adam Gilchrist, Ricky
Ponting and Michael Clarke-with the score reading 32. It was always going to be an uphill task
to recover from there onwards. Indian batsman Gautam Gambhir had the highest aggregate of
440 runs from 10 innings with an average of 55 runs while Nathan Bracken with 21 wickets at an
average of 16.72 was the highest wicket-taker in the CB Series.
A race row and umpiring controversy had earlier threatened to disrupt the cricket tour. The
controversial Sydney Test was blighted by contentious catches, a series of poor umpiring
decisions and over-zealous appealing. Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh was banned for three
matches for an alleged racist remark against Andrew Symonds. The charge of racially abusing
Symonds was later downgraded to abusive language by the International Cricket Council (ICC).
The ICC also accepted India's demand that West Indian umpire Steve Bucknor be removed for
the rest of the series after the umpiring fiasco in Sydney.
