The wimbledon final,finaaal to be precise, has thrown up a new deserving champion Rafael Nadal.Few moments come in our life, that we can confidently recall to our grandchildren as historic.This should be right up there.It showed us what tenacity can do, when you don't have abundant talent with you.It also showed us Great champions are not mass produced, but finely crafted with an extra special gear.True the match went on for 4 hours and 48 min, not even once allowing our mind to think about the impending dinner.Almost every audience there would have got the feeling they are infact seated round a boxing ring, not a theatre.
But,are we writing obituries for Federer too early..............
Every sporting champion has got a defining moment. Muhammad Ali standing up to a fierce pounding by Joe Frazier in Manila; Michael Jordan, sick and weak and shooting out the lights in the playoffs; Pete Sampras vomiting on court, legs rubbery, still winning in the 1996 U.S. open;Dravid fighting cramps and self-demons at Eden Gardens;Lance Armstrong conquering cancer in his hospital room and for Roger Federer it is on 6th of July.This moment would be the catalyst he is searching for the past few months.
Not many can come back from 0-2 down, especially against a guy who doesn't know fear and with history heavily weighing you down.Federer was simultaneously fighting Nadal on the court and Bjorn Borg off the court.Furthermore his forehand and backhand had lost their precise calibration for the past year and the half. But the only friend of him, that gave him company all through the match was his potent serve.Whenever he was in trouble he summoned it and it obeyed like a dutiful servant.In all he hit 25 aces, 89 winners.Yet the scoreboard read 4-6,4-6,7-6,7-6,7-9.He would be disappointed for sure but Federer would understand that the better guy on that day won.What remains memorable even after 60 hours is Federer saving the second championship point of the match in the fourth set with a backhand winner inches of the baseline that would have made the builder of B-52 bomber going green with envy, for the shot's accuracy.
Pete Sampras in the 1995 Australian open was a remarkable story in never underestimating people playing at this level.In the quarters, he was 2 sets down and staring at the barrel against Jim Courier.Before the start of the match his longtime friend and coach, Gullikson, had collapsed in the locker room suffering from brain tumor and rushed to hospital.When he was a break point down and unable to focus, in the third set, a fan called out,"come on pete,do it for your coach".Sampras started crying and served out an ace to close the break point.He won that match and he subsequently lost to Agassi in the finals.Anyway he won that elusive cup in 1997..After losing the 1996 Wimbledon, Sampras came back and won it for four continuous years, 1997-2000.
As Muhammad Ali famously said"Champions are not made in gyms.They are made of something else.You need both will and skill to win, but the will is more important than the skill".Of course Federer knows that and the humble man had already made a statement, "...please judge me after the U.S. open".Federer would come back strong knowing that he has got quite a few mouths to shut and should i tell you that we will have a lot more July 6ths if Nadal can show the same improvement he has shown.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Are we ready....
08/08/2008 08:08:08 a.m.
What does the above date and time tells you?....
For the uninitiated it tells us excatly the time at which olympics will start..so what...it also tells us "Be ready to face another year of embarassments"...one billion one medal..huh..,even my street watchman can run better..,why is your country's entourage more than the olympic participants..? can we tell them that we got a system that sucks(for want of a better word)..oh please dont forget to tell them that most of the ministers would be there,should i tell you the reason that almost all committes are headed by the present and the former ministers...please tell them that our hockey team is already kicked out this year, so no stories about our glorious 1930's.
When somebody asked the great American skuller, Tiff woods, why he should be given an opportunity in the 1984 olympics,he replied"...because an olympian stands alone" ... Natalie Du Toit who has qualified for the 10 km open water swimming in Bejing olympics in one leg, can perhaps tell us why Olympics is so special or we can ask her South african compatriot Oscar pistorius again a man without two legs, running on prosthetic legs why he is so desparate to attend this Olympics..their answers would be in the lines of "this is where i belong.."
China trains its athletes right from the young age, Cuba has got a system where sports is as important as anything,America pumps money into sports like a madman bitten by a dog, Russians are supremely gifted, Europeans don't play sports to get a college seat or a government flat, naturally medals chase them, Australians work ethic is like our long forgotten high school timetable...how are going to win medals against them?....
Danraj pillay once famously remarked "even when the national anthem is played, before the hockey match, we are 1-0 down"..Australian hockey team practices 1000 penalty shoot outs per session but we change our hockey coach in the olympic village (remember 2004)..there is no point in blaming our athletes because we produce them,we pamper them,we throw them into the dust bin finally...
More than the pumping of money,Government support, countries succeed because their society demands excellence, there is no place for quitters...even a guy who plays smart street basketball is widely appreciated in american streets,Australian school children pack sports kit and if there is space keep books in their school bags,we keep books and if there is more space, more books...every Australian streets conduct week end marathon 's and we don't even watch it on tv..unless or otherwise the culture changes, olympic medal winners would be a rare species in Indian sport...
Rememeber every athlete is ready and raring to go..Michael phelps, the American swimmer is armed with a new powerful speedo suit as well as "a powerful dream" is ready to test the human possibilities,the Chinese Liu Xiang, the reigning 110m champion hurdler has already promised a gold medal for the chinese people, the Russian gymnasts are licking their lips in anticipation,the Jamacian athletes are so restless for the olympics to start...so do we have a chance against the powerful athletes amid our ocean of negatives...yes if our athletes can remember the simple words which appeared in the TIME magazine sometime back...
"Through birth or circumstance, some are given certain gifts, but it's what one does with those gifts, the hours devoted to training, the desire to be the best, that is at the true heart of a champion."
These words were written by Weihenmayer ,the one and the only blind person to conquer Mount Everest....
What does the above date and time tells you?....
For the uninitiated it tells us excatly the time at which olympics will start..so what...it also tells us "Be ready to face another year of embarassments"...one billion one medal..huh..,even my street watchman can run better..,why is your country's entourage more than the olympic participants..? can we tell them that we got a system that sucks(for want of a better word)..oh please dont forget to tell them that most of the ministers would be there,should i tell you the reason that almost all committes are headed by the present and the former ministers...please tell them that our hockey team is already kicked out this year, so no stories about our glorious 1930's.
When somebody asked the great American skuller, Tiff woods, why he should be given an opportunity in the 1984 olympics,he replied"...because an olympian stands alone" ... Natalie Du Toit who has qualified for the 10 km open water swimming in Bejing olympics in one leg, can perhaps tell us why Olympics is so special or we can ask her South african compatriot Oscar pistorius again a man without two legs, running on prosthetic legs why he is so desparate to attend this Olympics..their answers would be in the lines of "this is where i belong.."
China trains its athletes right from the young age, Cuba has got a system where sports is as important as anything,America pumps money into sports like a madman bitten by a dog, Russians are supremely gifted, Europeans don't play sports to get a college seat or a government flat, naturally medals chase them, Australians work ethic is like our long forgotten high school timetable...how are going to win medals against them?....
Danraj pillay once famously remarked "even when the national anthem is played, before the hockey match, we are 1-0 down"..Australian hockey team practices 1000 penalty shoot outs per session but we change our hockey coach in the olympic village (remember 2004)..there is no point in blaming our athletes because we produce them,we pamper them,we throw them into the dust bin finally...
More than the pumping of money,Government support, countries succeed because their society demands excellence, there is no place for quitters...even a guy who plays smart street basketball is widely appreciated in american streets,Australian school children pack sports kit and if there is space keep books in their school bags,we keep books and if there is more space, more books...every Australian streets conduct week end marathon 's and we don't even watch it on tv..unless or otherwise the culture changes, olympic medal winners would be a rare species in Indian sport...
Rememeber every athlete is ready and raring to go..Michael phelps, the American swimmer is armed with a new powerful speedo suit as well as "a powerful dream" is ready to test the human possibilities,the Chinese Liu Xiang, the reigning 110m champion hurdler has already promised a gold medal for the chinese people, the Russian gymnasts are licking their lips in anticipation,the Jamacian athletes are so restless for the olympics to start...so do we have a chance against the powerful athletes amid our ocean of negatives...yes if our athletes can remember the simple words which appeared in the TIME magazine sometime back...
"Through birth or circumstance, some are given certain gifts, but it's what one does with those gifts, the hours devoted to training, the desire to be the best, that is at the true heart of a champion."
These words were written by Weihenmayer ,the one and the only blind person to conquer Mount Everest....
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