The Rio Olympics ended with a spectacular carnival-inspired closing ceremony, and the official handover to 2020 hosts Tokyo and the extravaganza came to a grounding halt after 16 days of hectic sporting activities. The colourful ceremony, lasting almost three hours, celebrated Brazil’s arts and was held in a wet Maracana. Among the highlights were Tokyo’s impressive showcase and a vibrant carnival parade. The feature of this Olympic games is that 120 countries went without a medal and the USA won 121 medals all by itself. A tally of 70 medals by China is the next best. Indian contingent got 67 the place with one silver and one bronze medal. It is two out of 975 medals and 0.21% of the total tally of medals. It is time for our sports bodies to gear up thick and fast before the Tokyo Olympics and do a world of good in medals tally instead of brooding our poor show. More and more funds should be allotted to sports in a cricket obsessed country like ours. Rio Olympics is a lesson for us and only hard work can help us to improve our medals tally to double figures.
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
