Of Lost Points and Missed Golds
India’s performance at the Summer Olympics in 2012, held at London, might not be what you call impressive; still we should be grateful that we are not the country that came dead last. In spite of the fact that we dropped down five places and failed to get home a single gold medal, at least we have valuable experience we can take away from all this; experience that will hopefully help us land within the top ten at the next Summer Olympics in 2016.
Our total medal tally of six medals was sadly the country’s best to date. At the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the total number of medals procured was just three but we had a gold medal to our credit then. Gold is not just a valuable metal; apparently it is also a prestigious one. If only we had a coveted gold at the London Olympics, we could have landed in the top 40. But sadly the best that we could do was two silvers and four bronzes. It might be nothing compared to the United States tally of one hundred and four medals and China’s total of 87 medals but overall it is not a bad haul, if you ask me. Sushil Kumar, the wrestler and Vijay Kumar, the shooter brought home the silver while Mary Kom, the boxer; Saina Nehwal, the tennis player; Gagan Narang, another shooter; and Yogeshwar Dutt, a wrestler, all bagged a bronze each. So even when the successful ones returned home disappointed that they didn’t come first, there were the other players who were just sad that they didn’t make it to the top three; especially in shooter- Joydeep Karmakar case. He missed his chance at a medal by 1.9 points. He ended up qualifying fourth at the Men's 50m Rifle Prone event. It is such a shame too because he was expected to be a sure fire winner (literally).
Joydeep Karmakar profile is replete with a number of plaudits and awards. He was destined to be an ace shooter from the start. After he bought a rifle of his own, he won a bronze medal in the National championships. He is cr4edited as the first Indian to win World Cup medal in the 5o m prone event and in 2010, he won another gold medal with a record score at the Commonwealth Championships. Among his other achievements, he also created a record of 594/600, which remains unbeaten to date.
