India: Masters of the Obscure Sports

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Considering the size and reputation of India, one would think that they would at least have a chance of breaking into the top cluster of countries in the Olympic medal table. However, at the most recent Olympics in 2012, the nation finished in a disappointing 55th after collecting two silver medals and four bronze ones.
Interestingly, out of all six medals, none of these were awarded for any “mainline” sports. Instead, some of the more obscure events such as wrestling, badminton, shooting and boxing were the sports that the Indians succeeded in. Here, we’ll take a look at the three and delve into exactly how the country performed.

Wrestling

In total, there were two Indian athletes who succeeded in wrestling. Sushil Kumar was the most successful as he picked up a silver medal for his efforts, although YogeshwarDutt performed admirably as he achieved a bronze. However, while this may have been one of the most important sports from an Indian perspective, the country could be hit hard with the medal count at the next Olympics. It has been announced that wrestling has been dropped from the schedule – and it’s not just India who have reacted in uproar following the strange decision.

Of course, while we’re on the subject of the Olympic programme, we may as well talk about the potential of cricket. Even though wrestling might be on the way out, there are calls to introduce cricket back into the Olympic schedule. The sport has only appeared once before, but suggestions are being made for a Twenty20 form of the game to be brought in. This would of course benefit India immensely considering their standing within the sport and if this is going to occur, it will certainly be worth checking out a cricket bonus bet from bonusbetting.org.uk.

Badminton

SainaNehwal was the athlete in question under badminton, after she managed to pick up a bronze medal for her achievements in London. At just 22-years-old, it’s clear that Nehwal is making great progress as she improved on her quarter-final finish from the previous Olympic Games in Beijing.

Shooting

Out of all of the sports that India competed in at the Olympics, the country was probably most proud for the achievements picked up in the shooting category. This is regarded as one of the more challenging sports, and countries from around the globe seem to have athletes who are successful with the trigger. Despite this, the Indian athletes were not deterred and GaganNarang managed to pick up a respectable bronze, while Vijay Kumar went one better and managed a silver. Both men serve the Indian army on a day-to-day basis, which perhaps shows the reason why they proved so successful in this event.

Boxing

While female boxing doesn’t seem to grab quite as much attention as the male event, many Indians were still almightily proud of MeryKom following her bronze medal performance in this event. While she may be 29-years-old, this was her first attempt in an Olympics competition and she did herself very proud following an impressive display. Furthermore, it could be said that women’s boxing received much more attention than it usually does, after the winner of the event happened to be from the host country.

Olympic Education in India

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Getting the youthful generation into the field of Olympic sports games is one of the IOC main concern. To get into the field of sports, IOC has developed the Youth Olympic Games & an (OVEP) Olympic Values Education Programme, which was at the heart of the first ever national workshop hosted few weeks back in Delhi by (IOA) the Indian Olympic Association, under IOC. The IOC President officially launched OVEP Programme in India by Jacques Rogge at the time of Commonwealth Youth Games held at Pune on October 2008.
Sport: An instrument for Education

Nationwide delegates from various Indian states & union territories were introduced to the IOC values-based enlightening educational resource, the ‘Teaching Values: an Olympic Education Toolkit’, by means of the key to focus on how to use the manual efficiently in the classroom. This toolkit developed in order to assist coaches, educators & youth group leaders to educate the instructive values of the Olympic Movement.

The instructive values of the Olympic:-

* Joy of effort
* Fair play,
* Respect for others,
* Pursuit of excellence
* Balance between body,
* Will and mind
* Opportunities for dialogue
* Self-reflection,
* Background information & instructional methods for liberation of the different types of topical areas to endorse these values is the keystone of the workshop.

Reaching 20% of the population

Randhir Singh, the IOA Secretary General and IOC member highlight that the Olympic Values Education Programme would be embedded as part of the actions of the Indian National Club Games, which will be aiming 800,000 clubs around the country. It is estimated that 20% of the population will be touched & exposed to OVEP during its roll-out.

Brief History about Indian Hockey Tournaments

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Hockey is very popular game around the world. It has a glorious history in India too. Since the last decade of the century, several hockey tournaments are organised in India on a regular basis. The Indian hockey tournaments are organised at the district level, state level, national level and international level. They are also organised at junior and senior levels, for both men and women hockey players. The tournaments play an important role in bringing out new talents for Indian hockey, from the very basic levels. India also organizing many regional and international tournaments in regular intervals apart from the domestic tournaments. The Indian hockey tournament are becoming famous around the world for their high standard of playing and number of good players.

Indian_hockey_team_1928_Olympics_match

The Beighton Cup was the first hockey tournament organised in India in Kolkata in the year 1895. Another tournament, the Aga Khan Cup was started in the following year, 1896 and was organised in Bombay. The United Province became the champions of the inter-state tournament`s first edition followed by the Senior National Hockey Championship for Women was incepted in 1947-48 and so on it is now organised regularly, since then. the Indian hockey tournaments are organised by Indian Hockey Federation and other Hockey associations, there are a few tournament that are organised by the corporate houses too these days. Many teams which include the state teams and club teams participate in the Indian hockey tournaments.

The Indian Hockey team has participated in the prestigious international tournaments like Olympic Games, World Cup, Hockey Champions Challenge, Commonwealth Games, Asian Games, Afro-Asian Games, etc. The Indian Hockey team scored Gold, silver and bronze medal during different occasions in both National and International level. Indian team became champion in the tournaments like Commonwealth Games, Asian Games, Asia Cup and Afro-Asian Games, many players shown extraordinary performances in the different tournaments. Many Hockey sports enthusiasts have their own websites that shows Current NHL hockey news, Predictions, Results and headlines with NHL odds, NHL schedule online and stats. Also there are other options which can be found on such websites like you can keep track through point scorer head to head, guessing about the first team to score and so on team to score last goal, most penalties in minutes, time of first goal and total goals for the day etc.