Politics Knocked Out Sports From London Olympics

Vikas Krishan: Victory Turns Into Defeat!

The Indian boxer Vikas Krishan’s defeat at London Olympics is, in reality, victory of politics and not sports. Vikas Krishanemerged victoriousin the 69 kg category bout against his American opponent Errol Spence 13-11. However, the happiness inside the Indian camp proved to be a short lived one. The review by the competition jury, under the aegis of AIBA, amended the final score 13:15 in favour of the USA. The jury members, accepting the protest, unanimously declared Errol Spence of the United States winner of the bout. India also filed the appeal later but the world governing body for the gamerejected their appeal. So India’s sensational victory in the pre-quarter-final bout got doomed to nothingness.

It’s pretty unfortunate that some nations can go to any extent to gain an upper hand in battle of supremacy. The ouster of Vikas from the London Olympics proves the point that when politics gets mixed with sports, it leads to such nasty developments. Thanks to United States for letting us know that you cannot win boxing match without playing some politics! Before I have a take on the merit of the decision, I need to say that I am sure had Indian Olympic Association as powerful as BCCI, Board of Control for Cricket in India, this would not have been the fate of the bout. Such happenings make it crystal clear that in present times, be its politics, cinema or sports, a certain shrewd manoeuvring, by people behind the curtain, always exists.

Imagine the team declared World Cup winner in FIFA World Cup Final match declared loser after few hours by the competition jury! Imagine another team declared winner by the ICC in the World Cup Cricket Final at Lords after few hours! The things would definitely become murkier in the world of sport if this sort of bizarre change becomes commonplace. This sort of crazy decision marks the beginning of manipulating decisions all in the name of laws! Anyway, let’s put under lens the merit of the decision. It’s strange that even those aspects were taken into consideration to make the bout in favour of USA, whichgenerally cannot be judged by normal human way. The Competition Jury should have limited its review to those aspects only, possible for any referee to take note of them from normal human angle. To extend its limit to those angles, which no referee can intercept in normal way is absolutely nonsensical.

That’s why I feel that to award points only because “referee’s view was blocked by the boxer from the USA” is height of absurdity. It is okay to include the unnoticed fouls within the realm of review but to ensure “correct gesture” on part of referee, in name of review, totally defies logic. Why should he have awarded points when something was beyond the range of his normal vision? If that’s the case why India’s appeal got rejected on same grounds, wherein it had been stated that “our guy did not hold Spence for more than seven times. The American was guilty of holding Vikas four times according to us.”(That’s an observation on part of National coach Gurbax Singh Sandhu)

This high-voltage drama at the London Olympics reduces the difference between politics and sports. It’s really sad that hopes of bright athletes, boxers, swimmers and shooters, to name a few, get checkmated by the will of minds who feel that politics needs to go together with sports. The performers next time should not only learn the tricks involved in their respective fields, but also come to master the art of politics, if they are really interested in winning medals at Olympics!