The Olympics. Yes Or No.

olympic_rings-svg

We have an Indian Olympic Association. We have also established the SAI for broad basing and bringing excellence in sports across India with nine Regional Centers. Both have at their disposal, huge annual budgets paid for by the gullible Indian tax payer. Besides these two giants, we have any number of other minnow bodies with geriatric officials clinging on to their posts and enjoying life long tenures without producing results.

We produce world beating cricket teams, tennis players like Sania Mirza an Indian professional tennis player who is currently ranked No. 1 in the women’s doubles rankings, and other Tennis and Badminton players. We have internationally successful boxers and golf players amongst us as we have hugely successful league games in cricket, kabaddi etc where players make good living as professionals.

Only 1 of 27 Indian sports associations has an athlete as its President.

The Indian sports management either through private bodies like the BCCI or the government has just proved to be corrupt, inefficient and serve only to provide careers and perks to its own officials and politicians.

We are a nation of 1.35 Billion people. The Indian contingent of 117 members to the Rio Olympics returned with one silver and one bronze medal. That places us at 67th place on the medals list.

If you ask me, for India, Olympics for India should be a No No. At least until our politicos and bureaucrats change.

Today’s topic for the weekly Friday LBC blog posts was suggested by Shackman immediately after the conclusion of the Rio Olympics. It would be interesting to see what his take will be on it. Pravin the other LBC blogger from India may well come up with a different take on the subject. Please do visit both to see for yourselves.

Tiger Woods

I cannot but feel sorry for Tiger Woods. Just read this story about his own feelings of remorse. I personlly wish that I had been a close friend of his to advise him when the s*** hit the fan, with him ramming his SUV into a few trees. Had I advised him, he would not perhaps, be in the predicament that he is in today.

Just Swing it!
Just Swing it!
With Sania’s tennis career at an all-time low, golf may be the way to go for a reasonable afterlife. With Kapil Dev as coach, prospects couldn’t be brighter. Of course, Tiger Woods will only be too glad to help if Sania is serious. At a recent cancer awareness event, the tennis sensation did exhibit a penchant for swinging the club.

The above news item is from the “Gliterati” page of one of India’s popular weekly magazines. Kapil Dev is an icon in India’s cricket loving world as a great cricketer who after retirement has become a scratch golf player. Sania Mirza is a tennis icon whose looks and tennis have floored India completely.

The point of this post is not about Kapil Dev or Sania Mirza, but the quip about Tiger Woods in the story. Tiger Woods is also an icon in India among the golfing fraternity and the sports crazy Indians who follow all global sportsmen.

I think that Tiger has completely mishandled the situation.

Had I been Tiger Woods, this is what I would have done.

1. Hold a press conference immediately after the discharge from the hospital to admit to whatever had happened to give me the bruised lips and cuts.
2. Explain the reason behind the happening.
3. Admit to women voluntarily chasing me to have affairs with me whenever the opportunity offered and my agreeing to have such affairs whenever the opportunity arose.
4. Advise all concerned that I would sort out the differences between me and my wife in my way and no one need to be concerned about it.
5. Be out on the links practicing or playing tournament golf without any further ado,

Why would I have done that?

1. The media actually envies me for my peccadilloes. To maintain otherwise is hypocrisy.
2. Most men, given the chance would do precisely what I did.
3. Most women of the type that follow celebrities around would want to have affairs with those celebrities.
4. Item 2 and 3 is natural and part of our deepest instincts. Women will go after alpha males and males will go after attractive women. I am of course talking about heterosexual people here.

As long as I am willing to own up publicly to what had happened and openly inform all concerned that I shall handle the fall out with my wife and sort out the matter to her complete satisfaction the matter should be treated as closed. I am entitled to my privacy and if any one did not like that aspect of my personality, he can stop being a fan.

Had Tiger Woods done what I would have done in his place, I think that he would have come out of the whole affair better than he has. His sponsors might have hemmed and hawed for a while but no major hiccups would have taken place. His male followers and admirers would have adjusted their admiration a couple of notches up. His female fans would have decided to take their chances too whenever the opportunity arose.

That leaves the wife. Not being a woman, I am unable to figure out what she should have done. I of course admire her for going after him with a niblick. Should she do something like what Heather Mills did with Sir Paul McCartney? Unlike Heather Mills, Elin Nordegren dropped out of public sight after their much publicized marriage. Perhaps one of my lady readers would like to offer some ideas!