It is no coincidence that in three consecutive Olympics till now, the first medal for India has come from its women. In Rio, it was Sakshi Malik, while in Tokyo, it was Mirabai Chanu, and now in Paris, it has been Manu Bhaker. This is a testimony to the rising power of women in today’s India.

Born on 18th February 2002 at Jhajjar in Haryana, pistol-firing was not on young Manu’s list of sports. Haryana is better known for churning out boxers and wrestlers, and so without a doubt, boxing was one of the sports on Manu’s list along with tennis and skating. In fact, seeing the Manu Bhaker of today with her infectious sweet smile, one would scarcely believe that at one time she won a medal at the national level in a particular form of martial art. However, once she tried her hand at shooting at the age of 14 years, and much to India’s good fortune, shooting became teenager Manu’s first love and it has continued till date.

Shooting is among the oldest events that were included in the Olympics as it was introduced at the very first modern Summer Olympics at Athens in 1896. Since then, shooting events have been contested in three categories – the pistol, rifle and shotgun. The U.S. has the history of being the most successful country in shooting so far, with more than 100 Olympic medals, while India, before the Paris 2024 version, had just four. Major Rajvardhan Rathore opened the account with a silver in the Men’s Double Trap at Athens in 2004. In 2008, at Bejing, Abhinav Bindra excelled in the 10 metre rifle event with a gold and then four years later, at London, Gagan Narang won a bronze in the 10 metre rifle event, while Vijay Kumar achieved the same in the 25 metre rapid air pistol event.

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Waldi: The furry pioneer of Olympic mascots

Our adventure begins with a nod to Waldi, the beloved dachshund who stole the hearts of millions and was the proud first official Olympic mascot. Sporting vibrant colours inspired by the Olympic rings, Waldi made his debut at the 1972 Munich Games, symbolizing the playful spirit and camaraderie of the Olympic movement. With his wagging tail and boundless energy, Waldi set the bar high for generations of mascots to come, proving that even our furry friends have a place in Olympic history.

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Wrestling has been plagued with controversy and scandal for the whole of last year. It has been hogging prime time and space in the media. The dismal performance of 1 gold, 1 silver, and 1 bronze at the recently concluded Asian Games, in which India achieved a total of 107 medals, speaks volumes about the effect it has had on our grapplers representing the country.

What Is Wrestling?

Wrestling, with the possible exception of athletes, is the oldest sport. In this sport, the individual grappler’s aim is to throw, hold the opponent down, or outscore the other during a match. Wrestling made its Olympic descent in 1896 at Athens. There are two types of wrestling at the Olympics — Freestyle and Greco-Roman.

The grappler submits to fight for three rounds under specified rules and regulations and agrees to be judged by a panel of judges. The rules for both forms are almost identical, except that in Greco-Roman, a grappler is not allowed to attack the opponent below the waist or use his own leg to execute a hold.

The Evolution of Wrestling as a Sport

In the seventh century, wrestler Ramdas inspired Hindus to take up wrestling as an activity in homage to Hanuman, the god of strength and valour. It is said that every Maharashtrian boy knows wrestling. And during this period, women wrestlers travelled the country, taking on all comers, too. The Peshwas support solidified its existence and strengthened its growth.

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Together with Neeraj, we salute Mirabai Chanu, as well, who won the first medal for India at Tokyo 2020 on the very opening day, P. V. Sindhu, the first Indian female athlete who won a medal in two consecutive Olympics (Sindhu was featured on our cover in October 2017). We also salute Lovlina Borgohain, Ravi Kumar Dahiya, Bajrang Punia, and of course, our men’s hockey team. You have done India and all of us really proud! Hats off to each one of you!

These young athletes have brought home 7 medals (1 gold, 2 silver and 4 bronze) which, as Gp. Capt. Achchyut Kumar points out in his cover story, accounts for a remarkable 20% of the total number of medals India has won till date. A tally of 7 medals in a single Olympics is the biggest harvest of medals India has ever had, improving upon the two silver and four bronze medals won at the 2012 London Olympics. They have really infused fresh hope in to the minds of all who now look up to 2024 Paris Olympics for a greater harvest of medals!

Though our women’s hockey team missed getting a medal, our girls did an excellent job under the captaincy of Rani Rampal, particularly in defeating team Australia considered to be far more superior to our team. They really deserve our applause, and it is heartening to see that the country has welcomed them back in that spirit. Cheerio girls! You have done your best, and The Teenager Today wishes you all the best in the 2024 Paris Olympics, hardly three years away. It is our firm hope that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and the government of Orissa will continue to stand by them and that more private sponsors too will follow suit.

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Poverty is never an excuse for achieving one’s dreams!

Mirabai Chanu, who began lifting firewood as a child, is now one of India’s best-known weightlifting stars. Saikhom Mirabai Chanu from Manipur scripted history as she won the silver medal in the Women’s 49kg weightlifting event at the Tokyo Olympics.

Mirabai Chanu, a native of Manipur’s capital city Imphal, was born on 8 August 1994. She won her first gold medal in a local weightlifting competition when she was 11 years old. Later, she began her international weightlifting career by competing in the World and Asian Junior Championships, where she won medals in both. She idolises Indian weightlifter Kunjarani Devi.

Determined to win

Her father Saikhom Kriti says, “She is the youngest baby out of six siblings. From the age of 12 she indicated that she would want to become an athlete. But we are a poor family. All we could do was to give her Rs 5 daily. With this, she used to go from home at Nongpok Kakching to the Khuman Lampak. As the bus service was unreliable she used to hitch a ride in trucks transporting sand, stones, etc.

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Every Olympics carries with it some bags of joy jumbled with some sorrow; Tokyo 2020 is no different. We had in our Olympic coverage last month termed the Tokyo Olympics as one of uncertainties, and this was proved right by the fact that despite the absence of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, Djokovic failed to win even a bronze medal at Tokyo.

In a century and quarter years of Olympic history, India has a total tally of 10 gold medals, 9 silver medals and 16 bronze medals. These are not impressive figures by any stretch of imagination but what is heartening is that of these numbers, one gold, two silver and four bronze medals have been India’s latest harvest, a remarkable 20% of the total number of medals won till date. In fact, a bag of seven medals in a single Olympics is the biggest-ever bagged by India, improving upon the two silver and four bronze medals bagged at the 2012 London Olympics.

My calculations before the Games that our ladies will bring in more medals than men, went off target like the shots of Manu Bhaker, the arrows of Deepika Kumari or the punches of Mary Kom.

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The present article may have nothing new to convey to you as the name Milkha Singh is not new for those who follow sports at any level nor some of the important achievements of independent India’s first super sportsman would be new for the readers as a biopic on him has ensured that even the cinema goers have a detailed knowledge about this Flying Sikh’s achievements. However, this article is The Teenager Today’s homage to an Indian athlete who for the first time made the world aware of independent India’s athletic potential.

Milkha Singh’s life story is a mix of tragedy and solace. Perhaps, the most tragic moment in his life must have been when as a teenager he saw the killing of his parents in the heinous rampage that followed India’s partition in 1947, but he was fortunate to have survived and found a safe refuge in India. He was fortunate to be recruited in the Indian Army which became mainly responsible for giving him the impetus to take to running but perhaps the same Army rules also restricted his elevation to the rank of an Honorary Captain and not beyond to that of an Honorary Major or Honorary Lieutenant Colonel. However, his achievements on the tracks were recognised by the country when he was awarded the Padma Shri in 1958 and in the process became the first ever athlete to receive such an honour. As a passing reference, it is worth mentioning that in 2007 when Milkha Singh’s son Jeev Milkha Singh was awarded the Padma Shri, it was the first time in India that a father-son sporting combination had received such an honour.

It is interesting to note that Milkha Singh’s name never came up for the Arjuna Award till 2001 when the Sports Ministry realised suddenly about its failing. However, the ever polite Milkha refused the Award on the pretext that the Award was meant for younger sportsmen and not for veterans like him. Later, he was more frank about the whole affair and made it clear that conferring an Arjuna Award after having been conferred the Padma Shri was synonymous to awarding someone with a Senior School Certificate after that someone had already received a post graduate degree.

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During the two World Wars, the scheduled Summer Olympic Games of the leap years were cancelled, but not of 2020 which has been postponed to the present year and yet continues to be named as Tokyo 2020. Have you ever wondered why? The Indian Premier League could not be completed due to the Covid infection of some of the team members and also of some team officials but the BCCI has most fervently left no stone unturned to see to its culmination even if has to be conducted on a foreign land.

One needn’t go far to understand the reason for such endeavours. The real interest lies neither so much in the interest of sports’ lovers nor the welfare of the sportspersons but in the financial interest of the organisers. One doubt, however, may continue to haunt the more eager to know individuals is that a country like Japan which is so dedicated to accuracy and precision, why should it continue to name the Summer Olympics as Tokyo 2020 and not Tokyo 2021? The answer once again is financial. So the Tokyo 2020 Games that were set to start on Friday, 24 July 2020, and end on Sunday, 08 August 2020, would now have every event postponed by 364 days so that even the days of the week remain the same for every event, as planned earlier.

My younger daughter, who had been on a trip to Japan in 2020, months before the initial scheduled start of the Summer Olympics, knew that one of the best mementoes to get for her father would be a souvenir of the Olympic Games. So among the few things that I got from her were two writing pens with ‘Tokyo 2020’ embossed on them. Clearly, the marketing products related to the Olympic Games had permeated into the market several months before the scheduled start of the Olympic Games and the business houses would incur huge losses if the Summer Olympics were to be named as ‘Tokyo 2021’, something that the Olympic Committee could ill afford to draw the wrath of its sponsors.

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Imagine this — as a sportsperson, you work hard your whole life in order to compete on the world’s biggest stage. Your hard work pays off and you qualify for the biggest stage of them all — the Olympics.

Then at the pinnacle of your lifetime goal, you suddenly falter, and mind you, the entire world is watching as you do so. You’ve failed so miserably that all you can do is run for cover, run away from the very stage you dreamed of being on. Failure may be a stepping stone to success, but humiliation and heartbreak is definitely a hard pill to swallow. How you bounce back is indeed what differentiates the good from the great.

Meet Saikhom Mirabai Chanu, India’s Golden Girl. She won gold at the World Weightlifting Championships in USA last November, becoming only the second Indian weightlifter to win gold at the World Championships after Karnam Malleswari did the same 22 years ago in China. Chanu lifted 85 kg in snatch and 109 kg in clean and jerk to total an impressive 194 kg in the 48 kg category and in the process set a new national record in clean-and-jerk. Her own previous record was 108 kg in June last year.

During the medal ceremony, Chanu broke into tears while seeing the tricolour from the podium. “I was sure of winning a medal but never thought that I would end up finishing with gold. So when I saw the flag after wearing the gold medal around my neck, I just could not stop my tears. I got very, very emotional,” she said. “I have been training hard in Patiala, not having gone home for a long time. But it all seems worth it,” she added.

And she even skipped her sister’s wedding to participate at the world championships. “When I spoke to my mother after winning the medal, she started crying as she knows what all I have been through. She was happy that missing my sister’s wedding has not gone in vain,” Chanu said.

Hailing from the tiny state of Manipur, this diminutive lifter is all about comebacks. At the Rio Olympics, Chanu failed to even lift her entry weight of 104 kg in clean and jerk to end her 48 kg category event as DNF (Did Not Finish).

“I had really bad luck in Olympics. I could have won a medal. At the Olympic trial I had scored 192, if I could have done that I would have won silver but I couldn’t. It was my first Olympics and I got nervous,” she said.
Disappointed as she was, the lifter from Imphal decided that she was not going to give up even if she failed on the biggest stage.

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