JOIN USFor the track record @ Olympics
The Olympics, and our grand haul of seven medals, sent a clear message to some of our terrorising neighbouring countries: don't mess with Indian men and women. Our guys are the best in the world for throwing hand-held, long, sharp weapons even 87.5 kilometres beyond our borders. And they can wrestle infiltrators to the ground with their bare hands. Okay, so our men aren’t as brilliant with guns, or bows and arrows as we hoped… but as a team, can deftly attack with a bunch of sticks and win — with manoeuvres that beat even German precision.
And our women! We can box and uppercut our way out of attacks. And smash and return any hurtling missiles sent our way. Not to mention, pick up objects, including enemies, weighing up to 202 kg and fling them on the ground with ease.
Nail-biters
I enjoyed the Tokyo Olympics, screaming through every nail-biting finish. Noting thankfully, that girls like PV Sindhu or Manika Batra didn’t have my nervous nail-chewing habit, what with their jazzy nail-art of colourful Indian flags, displayed proudly in their Instagrams. I also have some profound observations on gender and the Olympians. Our excitable commentators left out important comparisons and backstories, but I have plenty of surprising trivia for you. Our men displayed far more adventurous tattoos than women. Manpreet Singh, the hockey captain, had an entire leg of art, featuring a ferocious tiger and a lady. But hockey star Sushila sported only Olympic Rings tattoos.
Our women gave fewer high-BP moments to our foreign coaches, who were behind six of the seven medals we won. Sindhu’s Korean coach Park Sang even said a calming aaram se during her frantic dashes to the net. But wrestler Deepak Punia’s Russian coach Gaidrov attacked an official after his ward lost the bronze, and was immediately expelled and sent home, disgraced.
Not so our beloved women’s hockey coach; who was given a warm send-off to Denmark. Despite none of us getting his name Sjoerd Marijne, the girls seemed to get whatever their coach was saying earnestly, in every break. Being somewhat of an expert lip-reader, I could easily make out his secret match-winning instruction at halftime, just before Rani and her team beat Australia. “Go neaten up curls!” is what I distinctly heard Marijne say. Though you may be inclined to believe my sister, who feels he merely said, “Go beat’em up, girls!” Who knows?
Neeraj Chopra’s ecstatic coach, on the other hand, had an easy name, Dr Klaus. But it took Indians ages to get the German village he came from, which is as long as Neeraj’s javelin: Oberschlettenback.
This was the first Games that had equal gender participation of men and women in every sport. And in our enlightened inclusive world, the highest number of openly LGBTQ+ competitors. The Canadian Quinn (no second name) was the first-ever transgender to win a Gold for women’s baseball. And while some sportspersons may still be hiding in closets, many triumphant men’s teams celebrated with gay abandon, literally, with uninhibited displays of testosterone-charged joy. Especially Barshim of Qatar who shared the high jump Gold with Tamberi of Italy. Tamberi leapt into Barshim’s arms and proceeded to leap really high in the air in ecstasy, nearly beating their joint winning jump of 2.37 metres. But one thing confused and annoyed many of us women: females still being called male names.
Why should glam gals in athletics hit the winning tape as Thompson-Herah and Felix on their vests — when they have perfectly feminine names like Elaine and Allyson? How patriarchal is that! And talking of gender confusion, I feel designers of sportswear handed out uniforms this year that was flattening, more than flattering to women. Ah, Sports the Leveller!
Fortunately, some women knew how to make up for this. With makeup. However, since many sub-categories depend on the weight of the person — like artistic gymnastics — we laypeople are confused: do they mean the weight of a person before or after they apply heavy makeup?
And a young girl Aditi single-handedly, (using both hands though) made millions in our country wake up at 4 am to see a golf ball fly through the air, rather than a cricket ball, as we usually do.
The hunger games
It’s no wonder that with the hunger for medals, winners end up biting their medals on the victory stand. It’s an Olympic tradition of course but in this pandemic? Much to the horror of star softball pitcher Miu Goto, Mayor Kawamura merrily took her gold medal at a party and bit into it for fun. The Olympic committee wasn’t amused. And replaced the germ-infected medal at once. Meanwhile, a swimmer from Australia, Emma McEon tied with India in winning seven medals too. There’s a rumour that Tokyo’s highest individual medal winner may enter the Paris Olympics as a separate country on her own. No worries. India can easily beat Emma, as our honourable sports minister has decided we are going to win more than seven medals at the next Olympics.
(He said/She said is a monthly column on gender issues — funny side up. The author switched to a career in advertising/writing as world markets may have collapsed if she ever became an economist. Reach her at indubee@yahoo.co.in)