Barcelona-Chelsea champions league encounters last year were exciting, full of emotions and heart breaking for me as a staunch supporter of Barca. There has been the pitch controversy with Chelsea delaying re-laying the pitch. Obviously Barcelona players aren’t pleased. Silvinho said:

I cannot believe it. I have heard they are making the condition of their pitch worse. I’ve heard many complaints about the pitch.

Why should patches devoid of grass be left for such a crucial match?

The latest suggestion by Mourinho regarding inviting Barca to use their training base doesn’t serve much purpose. The crucial first leg will still be played on a poorer pitch than it should.

Well the conditions will be equal for both teams and whoever plays better in these circumstances will be the winner. The pressure is on Barca as they did loose to Chelsea last year, though by the thinnest of margins (goal difference) in the two leg encounter. History will not look at Barcelona going down two years in a row to Chelsea too kindly. It will mean that Barca will have a tougher challenge to be recognised as a great team in the future by many fans. It would be greatness denied. I hope I am smiling after the second leg is complete on March 7th.

Whether it is Shani Davis becoming the first black male to win an olympic gold, Kjetil Andre Aamodt of Norway becoming the first Alpine skier to win four career gold medals or Janica Kostelic becoming the first woman alpine skiier to achieve the same feat (30 minutes after Aamodt achieved his feat!), there is no dirth of historic feats.

I regret not being able to watch all this action on TV. My TV here at the hotel just has a disturbed Ten Sports. No ESPN, STAR Sports or Zee Sports (though I do not know if any of the stations are covering the games).

That is what John McEnroe said after he showed an extreme level of fitness to reach the semis of the ATP doubles tournament at San Jose with Jonas Bjorkman.

I first watched McEnroe live on TV at Wimbledon last year when he partnered Fleming (once again!) and featured in Nadal pants (or whatever they are called). I was amazed at the agility, placement and most importantly fitness McEnroe displayed.

Vijay Amritraj said then on TV that McEnroe took his fitness extremely seriously. He played regularly in the US and near his house. Watching McEnroe play is a privelege in itself and I understand, if only slightly, why sports from the past era have such reverence for the man because I have seen him play live.

And if you are wondering, McEnroe did scream at the umpire in his most recent match.

Update - McEnroe has won the doubles title as CNN reports.

Canadian Duff Gibson created history when he became the oldest individual gold medalist at the Winter Olympics at the age of 39 (Men’s skeleton title). He broke the record of Magnar Solberg who was 35 when he won his last gold. The oldest athlete to win it in a team event remains, as CNN reports:

The oldest Winter champion for any event is Jay O’Brien, who was 48 when he won four-man bobsleigh gold for the United States at the 1932 Games in Lake Placid.

At the summer games, Oscar Swahn was the part of the Running Deer shooting team at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics which won gold. . He was 64-years and 258-days old. Incidentally he is also the oldest olympian. As the official Olympic site reports:

After World War I, Swahn returned to the Olympics -at the age of 72. He won a silver medal in the running deer double-shot team event and also competed in the individual and team single-shot contests.

With India’s population, it surprises many that India is not a force at the Olympics. R.J.Elliott wonders the same in a comment in Aaman’s recent article:

I’ve always found it a bit baffling that India, with over one billion citizens, doesn’t seem to have much success in either the Winter OR the Summer Olympics…and that they don’t seem to have many (any?) nationals playing at the professional level in the US in any of the four major American sports. Surely there is a 7-foot 6-inch Indian fellow out there who would like to make millions playing in the NBA. Or a 35-pound Indian who would make a good offensive lineman in the NFL. But where are they?

Winter Olympics

Most commonwealth nations have performed poorly at the Winter Olympics. Apart from Canada who had won 31golds and was at number 10 in the all time Winter Olympic medal table before the games started, Commonwealth nations have had little to show. Poor performances at the Winter Olympics is not an India specific or South Asia specific phenomena.

Great Britain have won 8 golds in all, and among them are medals from an era when not many nations competed in the Olympics. Australia hadn’t won a medal before 1994. Australia loves its sport passionately and evidence of that is its improvement in the Winter Olympics. 40 athletes are competing for Australia at the Torino games, almost double the size in recent times. However, I might add that the latest gold medal winner for Australia, Dale Begg-Smith, is Canadian born.

What about the other nations? New Zealand is at number 36 with a solo silver in a tally of 38 nations which had won medals before the current Olympics started. Countries like Norway, Austria, Finland and Sweden have extreme cold conditions unlike a Great Britain or Australia which explains the vast difference in medal counts in winter sports.

The fact that India has sent out 4 participants for the Torino Games is a big enough achievement considering the bare facts. India does have the Himalayas, but how many skiing resorts exist?

Summer Olympics

The wonder cannot be put to rest with the Winter Olympics, however. With a population of 1.1 billion, India still has not managed to win a single individual gold at the Summer Olympics.The reason which is usually given? India is a one sport nation.

Is India really a one sport(cricket) nation?

Cricket is played on every street in India. Go to the cities,villages, sea beaches, deserts or mountains - everywhere you will find children playing cricket. Why then can India not produce cricketers who are better than cricketers of the rest of the world combined, if all its sporting resources are going to cricket?

To begin with, there is hardly any infrastructure, and talent is not tapped. If it is tapped, it is not groomed well enough. This has changed recently with cricketers coming from outside the major cities like Sehwag, R.P.Singh and Suresh Raina. The fact remains though, that for every Sehwag there are countless kids playing with rubber balls whose talent is not tapped and do not know what playing with a proper cricket ball is.

At the first class level in India, there is no support system for the players. A former India player told me once when I went to meet him that his biggest mistake was that he did not finish education before going on to pursue cricket. Obviously, if he had the qualifications, he would have retired much earlier than he did, trying to earn a proper living.

Hardly 5-6 players can command a place in the national team for a span of 10 years. There is money in the game yes, but is there really money then to support the careers of at least the state level cricketers? The way the money is currently distributed, the answer is no.

The plight of other sports in India

Rajyawardhan Rathore, silver medalist at Athens, 2004, in the Men’s double trap event did it with an attitude few people have or are expected to have. He did not receive much support. Despite that he did not criticize the authorities and made the best of what he got, staying undeterred. When people see a Sania Mirza in India sport today, they do not realize the expenses players have to deal with when they are not ‘stars’.

To gain points a player has to travel far and wide and for it the player requires money. Add to that the money required to be paid to the best coaches from the world for proper grooming. Sponsors are necessary. The tragedy is, sponsors only come in once the player has become a star or is on the verge of becoming a star. Even after some one has achieved success, a sponsor can back out as was the case with Konery Humpy, India’s finest young chess talent. (though chess is not an Olympic sport, this shows the difficulties players face)

Why does money and infrastructure need to come up in a country where so many people are poor?

Sport brings in joy which is priceless. The joy the Brazilian kid gets playing football or the Indian counterpart gets hitting a six is unmatched. In that moment he forgets all hardships. Another argument brought up was regarding money invested in sports. Gaurav commented in the same article:

I believe spending money to compete at top athletic events that require insane amount of money is perverted for a country coming to terms with over 300 million people living below poverty.

If India had that attitude, India would not even have had the base for winning the World Cup in 1983. That victory it propelled a cricket craziness in India and money coming in through privatization of broadcasts in the mid 90s, the Wills World Cup happening in 1996. Hosting a big sporting event means the growth of infrastructure, tie ups with companies and jobs to many people. Sport is an industry in itself, even if you leave aside that it also brings joy to many people in the process.

I will not elaborate further on the joke that has been the super sub. I wrote on it when it first surfaced which can be viewed here.

I am just glad that it is going according to reports. A Twenty20 world championship? Bring it on!

The England under-19 team got thrashed by India under-19 in the semi-finals of the under-19 world cup. Abu Nechim Ahmed was the wrecker-in-chief. At one stage England were 17/5. England ended up with 58 in all and a massive 234 run defeat.

A very interesting discussion is taking place at Wicket to Wicket on racism.

Sport is about trying your best to succeed. If you do not, never mind. At least you tried your best. Applaud your opponent and try harder next time, learning from the experiences of the previous battle.

The sportsmen in the modern era forget this and try to win at all costs. The common excuse given is – sport has become more competitive, there is so much of money involved. Joey Cheek, an American speed skating champion who won gold in the 500 metre race at the Torino Olympics yesterday, donated the $25,000 he won for the refugees in Chad. Sadly, such attitudes are more exception than norm.

While sport simply meant a battle of skills earlier, it means much more today. The media attention, spectator interest, money, external pressures are all there. Players expect more. Spectators too want more in every regard. Expectations aren’t always fulfilled. As a natural consequence, anger results. Anger in displayed in various ways by various people.

I was at the Eden Gardens when the semi-final between India and Sri Lanka was abandoned. Some people threw bottles and oranges. Others hurled abuses at Azhar. Abuses were also hurled at Sangita Bijlani, the actress Azhar would marry after divorcing his wife. India had lost and Azhar was the main culprit as far as the emotionally charged crowd was concerned. In such a passionate state of mind, some people felt the above actions were excusable. Others felt bringing in their racial slurs were excusable as well.

Society has a lot of evils. As cricket grows, it is harder to resist such evils. Jagmohan Dalmiya wanted to globalize cricket which is good for the game. But a level of maturity is needed to deal with the evils which globalisation tends to bring with it. Without maturity, the evils take over and the significance of sport is lost. In the recent past the cricket world has dealt with quite a few issues with immaturity – The Zimbabwe issue, the ambush marketing issue.

I hope some maturity is shown to rid the game of racism or at least shrink it to its minimum.

Joey Cheek won the 500 metres speed skating gold. With it he won $25,000 cash bonus.

What did he do with it?

As you know, there’s been some media but not a ton [about] the Darfur region of Sudan [where] there has been tens and tens of thousands of people killed. My government has labeled it a genocide, and so I will be donating money specifically to refugees in Chad where there are over 60,000 children who have been displaced from their homes….

Yes he donated the money and urged fellow Olympians to do the same. For him it is not about the money.

I have been blessed by competing in the Olympics in speedskating. If I retired yesterday I would have gotten everything in the world from speedskating and from competing in the Olympics. So for me to walk away today with a gold medal is amazing…. And so, I’ve always felt that if I ever did something big like this I wanted to be prepared to give something back.

Sportsmen are role models, yes. Sportsmen can also make a read difference. They enjoy a platform from which they can impact several lives by their examples, and setting examples. In India, Tendulkar donates to many charitable causes away from the spotlight. Schumacher made some praiseworthy donations last year. Steve Waugh has set an example in Calcutta.

Sport can indeed make differences in more ways than one.

Hat tip - Road to Torino blog.

Australia have won the VB series in some style after the initial hiccup. Many weaknesses of the Australian one day team, once invincible, are there for all to see now though.

The biggest problem has been the bowling. A look at the VB series stats is enough. Apart from Lee and Bracken, NO one impressed. With Warne (who I believed would be back for the world cup) not looking in that direction (at least for now) and McGrath is future uncertain with his personal crisis the bowling cupboard is extremely bare. Can we really expect Brad Hogg to perform better than ordinary? He is no great force. And even if we consider him to pass the cut, who play the roles of the 4th and 5th bowlers? Watson, perenially injured, may solve a bit of the problem. But guys like Watson, Symonds can play support roles. If some player doesn’t step up, the Aussie team can look to chase big totals against the other strong one day teams.

Regarding the batting - the team has had collapses. With Katich and Martyn not performing at a level required, there have been situations of trouble. It is an area which needs to be strengthened to ensure not losing matches because of collapses. It is an area which Australia can rectify hopefully in the future (with Jacques or some one else stepping up).

But I do not know how Australia can counter the first problem it is encountering.

The VB series showed there are plently of problems for South Africa (specially since the world cup will be played in the slow, low pitches of the Windies) and a lot of positives for Sri Lanka. Without going into those details, the marathon series, often sluggish, has shown a lot regarding the three participating teams.

UPDATE - Peter Roebuck holds similar views to mine here.