Who pays the price for Indian non-performance?

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Mumbai: Karnan Malleswari won a bronze in the 69-kg category in weightlifting. Malleswari became the first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal!

India opened their medals tally at the 2000 Olympics. And we are consistently winning medals what with Leander Paes winning a tennis bronze at the 1996 Atlanta Games. The sleeping Giant of the sub-continent has awakened and is winning medals.

Quite encouraging signals one would feel, but no this is the pits. A country of one billion (haven't we heard this before) not being able to produce a bunch of sportspersons capable of getting a medal tally, which goes into the double figures.

Sorry! Malleswari. You deserve all the accolades coming your way. But rather than do a post-mortem after the Games why not indulge in a bit of pre-mortem or what would be something similar to a doomsday prediction.

Aparna Popat lost in the first round in Badminton and as some newspaper proclaimed snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Yeah we know that she was banned (unfairly, if we may add) for three months by the International Badminton Federation (IBF) for testing positive for using a banned substance.

But then if she was not match-fit then why did she bother to make the trip Down Under? If she hadn't been banned and she still had lost may be we would have had to contend with the excuse of fatigue due to too much badminton.

Nisha Millet, India's answer to Inge De Bruijn, Susie O'Neill and Penny Hayes was a disaster in the 200 metres freestyle. Her time was 10 seconds slower than that of the fastest qualifier. If the best in the world are 10 seconds faster than India's best then it is only fair to demand that the Indian Olympic Association give an explanation for wasting the taxpayer's hard earned money spent on these athletes' trip.

The men's weightlifter Muthu was as expected a no show. The lesser said about the rowers the better. The shooters were competitive at their best but not consistent enough to challenge the big guns. The table tennis players including Chetan Baboor were as out of place at the Olympics as an Indian would be while playing basketball in the NBA of America.

Sometimes after witnessing such ridiculous attempts at the international level one feels whether Indian athletes have really taken the adage "not important to win, but to participate" to heart.

Now as we also know the best efforts by Leander Paes and Gopichand were not good enough to get them past their early rounds. That leaves us with only the men's hockey team, a couple of boxers and the pair of Paes and Bhupathi to pin our hopes on.

But going by the past performances only a brave person will bet on an Indian medal. But patriotism has often prompted one to do foolish things.

So here is hoping that that this criticism is proven wrong not only in hockey but also in tennis, athletics and boxing.