Every Olympics ends with the International Olympic President declaring it the best ever .This time however it may be true not only because of the standard of the competion but because it quite simply was the best televised Olympics ever.If the YouTube coverage was superlative,the television coverage in India was the best ever.God forbid those days when our only source was DD .With ESPN taking over the coverage,we had Star,Espn,EspnHD and DD Sports covering .It means 4 events at one shot.DD Sports did it extremely professionally as well.Maybe they are catching up to world standards.Oh and ofcourse India did it's best ever,whats there not to like about this Olympics .Oh wait there may be!
It had its share of controversies,the shameful
Badminton fixing scandal,the
usual doping scandal,and the
judging controversies.India had it's best ever performance but it had its fair share of bad luck in many ways . Boxing was definitely biased against India..Not long after India raised its voice were some judges from Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan thrown out .News of bringing back the old scoring system should cheer up the boxers.
It is said Umpires favor the stronger nations in cricket,and it is more a matter of psyche than true bias when it comes to making the line calls.This time however I am sure it is the same in Olympics.The Chinese & Americans are the BCCI of the olympics.They call the shots,they get the medals,they get the line decisions.
The medals may be mostly their effort but the decisions is just bias.
This was exactly what happened when I watched a pair of Chinese divers in the synchronized diving competition.They had been doing well so far but the crucial penultimate dive came.And to the layman ,that dive was just horrible.There was no sync and they landed with a huge splash ,as good as landing on your belly in gymnastics.The commentator on air said, "That's probably going to move China out of the medal race" .Then a few seconds wait and the points come up ,A few judges score 6.5 on 10 which is probably the right score .The rest scored a perfect 10 .The total was the highest ever in the competition and China won the gold medal. The commentators reaction when the score came on the screen "Well that seems rather generous" ,enough said ,case closed not one more round of diving did I see after that.
And finally after all these years a question that had been bugging me since I was 7 got cleared.I have always wanted to look it up since I was a kid,but without the internet in those days I had never been able to get a proper answer from anyone.With the Olympics being held in London,the question piqued my thoughts again and I finally got my doubt cleared.
What is the difference between UK (United Kingdom) , GBR (Great Britain) & England ( In cricket)
The answer is simple.
- UK = GBR+NI (Northern Ireland)
- GBR=England+Wales+Scotland
- England(In cricket) = England+Wales
- Ireland = Separate nation that shares its border with NI
However there is one addendum. Folks from NI have a choice of either representing GBR or Ireland in the Olympics .So there is no independent National Olympic Committee from Northern Ireland.
