Tokyo Big Picture: Vignettes from Indian contingent’s three weeks in Japanese capital-Sports News , Firstpost
As the Indian contingent returns after a seven-medal haul at Tokyo Olympics, here are some unmissable nuggets from Tokyo.
Is there a bigger magnifying glass to be held over an athlete’s character than the Olympics? You learn as much about an athlete who’s won on the biggest stage of all as you do when they have lost there. As the Indian contingent ended Tokyo 2020 with their best-ever medals tally at an Olympics, here are vignettes from the campaign:
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Deep in the Athletes Village, in the building housing the Indian contingent for the Tokyo Olympics, a wall has become a reminder of what India has achieved at this edition of the Games. On this wall are photographs of the seven medals India earned at Tokyo 2020.
It was in front of this wall that Lovlina Borgohain, newly-minted bronze medallist in boxing, met Neeraj Chopra after he had claimed gold in javelin throw on Saturday, India’s seventh and final medal of this edition.
Neeraj’s gold is the first medal for India in track and field since Independence, not to mention only the second individual gold the nation with a population of a billion has won in an Olympics. The medal also took India’s tally at the Games past its previous personal best: six medals at London 2012.
After the meeting, Lovlina posted a photo of their meeting on Instagram, but instead of two medals, just one can be seen in the frame: Neeraj’s gold. For Borgohain, that’s the only colour that matters.
She said as much right after her semi-final defeat to Turkey’s Busenaz Surmeneli in the women’s 69kg weight class.
“It feels good that I have a medal but I could not achieve what I set out to do. I came here with the target of winning the gold medal. I was sure that I would win the gold,” she told journalists, disappointment writ large on her face. “Mehnat gold ke liye kiya tha, isiliye kharab lag raha hai.”
In the coming days and weeks, realisation will dawn on Borgohain on just how much a medal, of any colour, means to the country. But in the moments after her defeat, she gave the country a glimpse of an attitude that is refreshing in Indian sport.
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Ravi Dahiya, who won a silver in the men’s 57kg weight class, is another disciple of this philosophy that no other medal matters. He came to the mixed zone, right after his medal ceremony, looking inconsolable. It didn’t matter to him that he had just stood on a spot on the Olympic podium that not many of his compatriots had even come close to.
A silver for him was a gold medal lost.
Wrestler Ravi Dahiya didn’t make much of his silver medal. Image: AP
“I’m happy. But this medal is not what I came here for. Yeh theek hai, par hamaare liye itne maayne nahi rakhta (This is alright, but it doesn’t mean much to me),” he said. So dejected was he by the colour of his medal, that he tucked it into his jacket, away from the eyes of the world.
When a journalist asked where his medal was, he almost gave it away.
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One of the first acts of Neeraj Chopra after winning a historic gold medal is to go to the runway on the athletics track and offer respects, like you would while entering a temple.
“Yeh javelin aur javelin ka runway track joh hai, aadhi jawaani toh isime chali jaayegi. Yeh track hamaara Bhagwan hai (This sport and the runway track are what will consume half of my youth. This track is my temple),” he said.
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Saurabh Chaudhury, the boy wonder of the Indian shooting contingent, came to the mixed zone to talk to journalists right after he had finished seventh in the men’s 10m air pistol event. Despite his young age—he is just 19—there were a lot of expectations from him. After all, he is someone who has won medals at most events he has competed in: from Junior World Championships to Junior World Cups, from senior World Cups to season-ending World Cup Finals, from Asian Games to Asian Championships to the Youth Olympics.
He had topped qualifying in the men’s 10m air pistol event at Tokyo 2020 too, so the seventh spot finish was even more difficult to digest.
Chaudhury though was unflappable even in the face of defeat.
“Abhi toh ek chance hi hua hai. Abhi toh poori umar padi hai. (This was just one shot at an Olympics medal. I still have my entire life to win at this level.)”
He got his second shot soon enough, at the 10m air pistol mixed team event, where he paired with Manu Bhaker.
There too he experienced heartbreak. In the aftermath of that result, he was asked if the Olympics are a different ballgame altogether, with pressure like he’s never experienced before.
“I’ve competed at the Youth Olympics too. Everything’s the same,” he said. “Wahi range hai, target hai, pistol hai, goli hai, hum hai. Alag kya hoga?”
Even in defeat, some athletes have a way of reassuring you that this was just a blip.
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PR Sreejesh was in a good mood. Actually, he was in a great mood. Despite all the padded clothing he was wearing in the overpowering afternoon Tokyo heat, he seemed to be a man who has lost the capacity to feel hard done by anything. For, on this day, the Indian hockey team had won a medal, the first one at the Olympics in 41 years.
One of the most defining images after the medal was won was of Sreejesh climbing on top of the bar of his goal and spending a few moments gathering his thoughts in solitude.
PR Sreejesh found a unique way to celebrate the bronze. Image: AP
Being a hockey goalkeeper is a lonely job anyway. So lonely that Sreejesh has gotten into the habit of talking to his goalpost nowadays.
“When the ball goes in, I ask the goal ‘what are you doing, baba?’ and when a shot hits the post and ricochets away, I tell my goalpost ‘thank you, baba,’” Sreejesh told journalists only half-jokingly after the Indian men’s hockey team’s victory over Germany in the bronze medal playoff.
That is why, he added, when the medal was won, he lay flat on his belly in front of his goal, hands folded as if in prayer to a deity.
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A day after the Indian men’s hockey team wins bronze, the Indian women’s hockey too has a shot. But they fall just short, losing 3-4 to the Great Britain team. Many of the players are inconsolable, falling on the pitch. When they finally walk off the pitch, many players of the men’s team, including skipper Manpreet Singh and veteran Rupinderpal Singh, and coach Graham Reid applaud the players off the pitch. Then they come down the stairs and wait patiently for players like captain Rani Rampal and goalkeeper Savita Punia to finish their media obligations before giving them another round of applause.
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Kamalpreet Kaur leaned in with a conspiratorial glint in her eye and a sudden lowered decibel that suggested that what was about to be discussed cannot—must not!—leave the group. “Aapko ek baat bataoon?” she asked. “I played cricket just this January. No one knows about this.”
Are you not supposed to play cricket?
“No. I just love the sport. If I had found the sport before discus, I would have played for India someday,” she said with a grin.
Just in case anyone was wondering, she clarified that she only indulged in some batting, rather than bowling, which could have caused an injury to her throwing arm.
