> --- CARMO DCRUZ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Lest you have forgotten, India's game is field > > hockey and we have won the > > Olympic Hockey Gold medal in 1928 (Amsterdam), > 1932 > > (Los Angeles), 1936 > > (Berlin), 1948 (London), 1952 (Helsinki), 1956 > > (Melbourne), 1964 (Tokyo) and > > 1980 (Moscow). We have also won the World Cup > under > > the leadership of > > three-time Gold medallist Manager Balbir Singh in > > 1975 (Kuala Lumpur). > Mario responds: > Carmo, how can I forget? Two of the Indian Hockey Olympians in 1928 were from my neighborhood in Jabalpur even though I was not born yet. Rex Norris and Michael Rocque were friends of my family and I grew up in their shadow. > I love your single-minded passion for hockey, which used to be India's game in your days. It has long since been overtaken by cricket, my friend. > However, for a country with over a billion people, surely India should be able to produce world class atheletes in SOMETHING, ANYTHING. India is fairly competitive in it's major sport, cricket, which is played by very few countries, but it is no longer competitive in hockey, and surely not in soccer. > Look at the list of tiny ex-colonies that made it to the World Cup this year: Cote Ivoire, Togo, Angola, Ecuador, Paraguay, Tunisia, Saudi-Arabia, Costa Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, which is smaller than Goa. > Don't give me pious excuses about soccer being less cerebral than hockey, and your fantasies of returning to the glory days. India should be doing a lot better, in all the major sports. Instead they are unheard of on the world stage in ANYTHING. >
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