Indian Hockey at Olympics

I was reading about Indian hockey the other day. I knew we were a good team once upon a time. I was really amazed at our olympics record. It is unfortunate that we did not qualify for Beijing. Here is a list of past olympic results -

1928 Gold Amsterdam
1932 Gold Los Angeles
1936 Gold Berlin
1940 Games not held
1944 Games not held
1948 Gold London
1952 Gold Helsinki
1956 Gold Melbourne
1960 Silver Rome
1964 Gold Tokyo
1968 Bronze Mexico City
1972 Bronze Munich
1976 Seventh Montreal
1980 Gold Moscow
1984 Fifth Los Angeles
1988 Sixth Seoul
1992 Seventh Barcelona
1996 Eighth Atlanta
2000 Seventh Sydney
2004 Seventh Athens
2008 Failed to qualify Beijing

courtesy:
yahoo! sports
worldhockey.org/olympics

India at olympics

Congratulations to Abhinav Bindra, India finally gets an olympic gold medal. It is a great achievement by Bindra. While the celebrations are understandable all over India, one gold medal does not justify the 1 billion population. While we blame cricket for everything since it overshadows all the other games and sports, the main culprit is the politics involved at every level. The olympics offer a perfect stage for all sports. A victory here can capture the public’s attention and bring more young talent and more funds into the sport. It brings identity to the sport. I hope we have more leagues and competitions in all sports just like we have IPL/ICL for cricket. But with the media and the networks in india crazy with cricket, it might take a long time before the public can get to watch the other sports.

In another news, India is thrashed by Sri Lanka in the ongoing one day series.