Aiming for glory

London Olympics present India's best chance in decades to have its tryst with sporting destiny
LONDON: Following seven years of preparation for a 15-day extravaganza, London is finally ready for its tryst with Olympic history. 10 billion of expenditure and a regenerated East End described by Jim White as "derelict outpost to centre of the universe in five years" (but which continue to raise questions of rehabilitation for the original inhabitants and apprehensions over security) - it hasn't been smooth for Londoners in the lead-up to the world's greatest sports spectacle.Awful weather hasn't helped and staging a successful Olympic Games will be a test of the organisers' mettle.
As the newly created transport network ferries thousands of people from across the world to the Olympic Park in Stratford, and many thousands descend into the newly built Westfield mall adjoining Olympic Park, 'Brand Olympics' - currently valued at $47.6 billion and the second most valuable brand in the world after Apple - will also be on show. Questions like whether it is a simple sports competition or a global peace movement with serious political ramifications, will be answered over the next two weeks as the world's best take centre stage for the ultimate sporting glory.
London is the first city ever to host the Olympics for a third time; lucky, considering its past record isn't anything to be proud of. Soon after the Games ended a hundred years earlier in 1908, Baron de Coubertin, founder of the modern Games, had this to say: "It will be necessary to avoid copying the Games of London". Graeme Kent, author of the definitive book on the 1908 Games, agrees: "The London Olympics of 1908 were supposed to display the glories of the British Empire at its zenith, but they ended in uproar - everything that could possibly have gone wrong did so."
1948 was little different. Known as the "austerity Olympics" or the "Make-do and Mend" Games, organised in the aftermath of the World War II, the Olympics weren't half as glorious as they are in 2012. At the same time, the spirit, which is so very essential to the Olympic movement, was very much on display. In the words of Emil Zatopek, star of the 1948 Games, it stood for ''the sun finally coming out after the war".
The same spirit is in evidence in 2012. Despite a serious recession, the Olympic venues are excellent and Britishers, not simply Londoners, are much enthused by the event. Despite a critical home media echoing fears of a security and transport meltdown, almost all events are sold out promising packed stadiums and the very best sporting action.
Bringing in much needed international investment and a wave of international tourists, the opening ceremony, choreographed by Danny Boyle, will see an unprecedented 204 nations and two athletes with no nationality march today under the banner of the five rings in the Olympic stadium. Importantly, each of the 204 teams have women in their ranks making the 2012 Games the first gender-equal Games in history. Boyle too is aware of the high stakes involved. He knows there's no chance of a retake and the world will pounce on the smallest mistake. With nearly half the world's population watching on television, the significance and symbolism associated with the Games can hardly be underestimated.
For India too, the stakes are huge. With the best ever Indian contingent set to make the Olympic stage its own, chances are that years of neglect and lament for 'what could have been' will finally become a thing of the past. Hoping for medals in six disciplines, Indian Olympic sport is all set to come of age in London.
With the biggest ever media contingent from India already in London, a good London 2012 will help catapult Olympic sports to the forefront of the nation's imagination. Corporate coffers have opened up for these athletes and each of them is well aware that an Olympic medal is the key to a life of recognition.
Importantly for India, interest in the Olympics is all set to be sustained till the last day of competition. With the archers taking the stage later today at the consecrated Lord's turf and Sushil Kumar due to fight on August 12, the concluding day of competition, London 2012 will continue to be front-page news in the country for the next 15 days.
Finally, London, it is important to emphasise, has a very special place in the history of Indian Olympic sport. At the last Olympic Games in London in 1948, the Indian hockey players presented their countrymen with a befitting Independence gift - yet another Olympic hockey gold, which was made sweeter by a 4-0 victory over England in the final.
For a newly independent India, the 1948 Olympics were more than a mere sporting event. They offered independent India an opportunity for assertion and were a stage for a young nation to cement for itself a place in the world parliament of successful sporting nations. The hockey team success-fully satisfied this national yearning. London 2012 offers a budding superpower an opportunity to rewrite its dismal sporting history and correct years of frustration and failure at the highest levels of inter-national sport.
The writer is senior research fellow, University of Central Lancashire.