On a day when India’s Dola Banerjee, Bombyala Devi and Deepika Kumari’s late comeback received the backing of a vociferous crowd at the Yamuna Sports Compex, it would have been the easiest of things for 2004 Olympic Games bronze medallist Williamson and her England team-mates Amy Oliver and Naomi Folkard to blame the noisy spectators for their defeat.

Instead, the 38-year-old Williamson did well to point out that the archers had to get used to the crowd. “You have to deal with it. It is a part of the competition and on Sunday when we have the individual event I’m sure the home crowd will be vocal so we are just going to have to adapt to it,” she told reporters, showing a fantastic heart and sportsmanship.

For a team that led by three points at the half-way stage and held that lead until the final series, Oliver and Williamson felt the pressure when shooting their final arrows, securing 6 and 8. On the contrary, riding on some throaty support and immense self-belief, the Indians delivered higher scores in crunch situations.

Six years ago, Williamson won the Olympic bronze in Athens with the final arrow after a stiff contest. On Friday, she had a chance to repeat that feat. She needed to shoot a perfect 10 but managed 8, conceding the gold to the home side. Her team may have had to settle for the silver but she was delivering a golden showing herself.

Williamson did well not to be led into blaming either Oliver or herself for the one-point defeat. “We try not to look at individual arrows – we shot as a team and all the arrows count. It’s the way it goes sometimes,” she said. “If you’d told us before the Games we’d get the silver, we’d have been delighted.”

Above all, Williamson did well to say that the England team respected its opposition. Surely, the Indians deserved the commendation after showing nerves of steel in the tense final moments when the crowd worked for one team and against another, leading the International Archery Federation to remind the enthusiastic fans to respect all athletes and practice fair play.

Having let FITA to say that, he own conduct – and graceful response is what marks Williamson as a true champion.

Ashish Kumar becomes the first Indian to win a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games (Photo courtesy: PTI)

I have rarely been spoilt for choice of sporting events to watch in my 28 years as a sports writer as I have been over the past few days at Delhi 2010. The wonderful assembly of world, Olympic and continental medalists here – in swimming and shooting, cycling and athletics, hockey and tennis and a lot of other sport – has given the sports fan in me much to cheer about.

On Thursday evening, I was caught on the horns of a dilemma like never before. It was not easy to make a decision on where I spend the evening and questions kept bobbing up in head. Should I make my way to the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Aquatics Complex to watch the swimming finals and then hop across to the Talkatora Indoor Stadium to catch up with boxing action?

Or, should I head to the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium to witness a whole evening of track and field action? Or, perhaps I should be at the Maj. Dhyan Chand National Stadium for India’s hockey contest with Australia. Then again, the new wrestling arena at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Complex was a good option as well.

The decision was taken out of my hand by the strong tug of the track and field competition, especially the prospect of watching two landmarks – an Indian shot putter winning a Commonwealth Games medal and the fastest 100m on Indian soil. Neither came true but compensation came in the form of a lesson: expectations can often lead to disappointments.

Come to think of it, it was the ability of champions to stay focussed on delivering their best effort rather than worry a great about the result that came through at the athletics competition. We saw that when Sally Pearson, who has concentrated on the 100m hurdles ahead of the sprint, emerged the fastest woman at Delhi 2010 in a race marred by false starts.

There was a fairly long-drawn argument that England’s Laura Turner had with the officials at the start and it would have been easy for anyone to lose focus. But Pearson, who won the 100m hurdles silver in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, stayed calm, banished thoughts of perhaps having false started herself, and sprinted to victory in 11.28 seconds.

Similarly, England’s Mark Lewis-Francis rallied from a poor start – and he said his starting block slipped – to finish with a 100m silver medal behind Jamaica’s Lerone Clarke. As he pointed out after the race, he had to run from deep within to be able to walk to the podium. The 28-year-old was quite naturally over the moon.

Indeed, the beauty of sport is that while it keeps offering surprises – and, for good measure – shocks aplenty for the athlete and onlooker alike, it holds out lessons for anyone who is ready to learn from merely watching it.

A freelance journalist, she wrote about an incident in the Federation Cup being held at Jangaon, not far from Hyderabad, from April 24 to April 28. She said that a quarterfinal bout in the 81kg class had been rigged to favour Andhra Pradesh boxer B Srinivas aka Raju against Commonwealth Youth Games silver medallist Satender Kumar (Railways) since the home boxer is the son of AP Boxing Association. Joint Secretary Mr. Bal Raj.

Even though she was not an eye-witness, she had found out and described in graphic detail how the bout had been rigged. She suggested that the judges turned a blind eye to the punches that Satender landed and lights were switched off when a knockout seemed imminent in the second round. And when the home boxer landed one punch in the third round, the buzzer signalled the end of the bout, even though only one minute had passed.

Her mail also claimed Mr. Bal Raj had announced before the start of the bout that he had organised the tournament for his son’s benefit and that he had already spent Rs 10 lakh.

Interestingly, Indian Boxing Federation’s Secretary-General Col PK Muralidhar Raja was quick to conduct a preliminary inquiry and sent a reply to everyone Vijaya had mailed. He said that the boxers punches were not clear or hard enough for the judges to award them points in the first two rounds of the bout and in the third round, Srinivas landed one clear punch which was accepted by the judges as a legitimate blow and he received the point.

He said he had spoken to the Jury Members as well as the Railways team manager Ajit Chaudhary and coach Lalit Prasad. All of them told him that the bout was close and that Satender Kumar lost because he did not play his usual game. Col Raja said the Railway coach had told him that Satender was swinging wildly as he was wanting to knock his opponent out but did not connect his punches.

The IBF Secretary-General quoted the Railway coach and said Satender was cautioned by the Referee for landing foul blows. He said the coach also clarified that there was power failure during other bouts as well. And he said the Jury Members and Railways coach had told him that there was nothing wrong in the duration of rounds. Col. Raja also pointed out that Srinivas won his semifinal against Virender Singh (Punjab) on points 5:1.

That is the official position – and we shall accept that, even if we do not agree with it. In my younger days when I played basketball, I saw some forms of bribery and manipulation to back the theory that this quarterfinal bout could have been rigged to favour the home boxer. And in my days as a journalist, I have become more aware of such possibilities.

Vijaya’s effort reminded me of Andrew Jennings’s campaign against corruption in the International Olympic Committee, including one of its members answering to the name of Anwar Chowdhry. The long-serving International Amateur Boxing Association President was accused of being one of the most corrupt sports officials.

Long after Chowdhry was unseated, no less a person than AIBA Secretary-General Caner Doganeli said the Pakistani’s manipulations during his tenure as AIBA chief helped his country win laurels and cited its dismal performance in the Doha Asian Games in 2006 to bolster his claims of corruption.

The scandals surfaced from the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul when a Pakistan boxer, Hussain Ali Shah, became the first from his country to win an Olympic medal. Jennings wrote of how some fights in every World Championship and Olympic Games were rigged so that officials could go back home and speak of how their boxers achieved succeess.

In 2004, Chowdhry was openly accused by a coach from Thailand of switching scores in a pre-Olympic event in Karachi to favour a home boxer. Why, our own Jitender Kumar was said to have expressed doubts about his quaterfinal bout with Nauman Karim in the 2006 Asian Games in Doha if Chowdhry were present in the arena as Asian Amateur Boxing Federation President.

Sport – and I mean all sport – needs to retain its purity at all levels if we are to draw the young to pursue it as a career. We must encourage our young to showcase their own strengths and allow them to discover their own shortcomings, goad them to work on the limitations and watch them conquer new frontiers. Is it vain and foolish to dream such a dream?

Magic at its best

The drive to Kalatop almost did not happen because teenagers Priya and Aashka thought it would be boring. “We have seen sunsets and sunrises, haven’t we? One more sunset.. why don’t we drive down to Dharamsala and we can get some friendship bands there,” Priya said. Aashka echoed these thoughts but they got over-ruled by four adults.

The teenagers got excited when we were faced with a barrier that the forest guard on duty at a place called Lakkarmandi said would not go up because we were late and we would have to pay a hefty entry fee. But Sunil and I flaunted our journalist muscle and got him to raise the barrier and let our Tavera secure entry to the 3km drive up the winding, dirt track.

The road – if it can be called that – is so narrow that there is no scope for overtaking. In fact, every time a vehicle came from the opposite direction, the driver of the car going downhill would have to find a ‘parking’ bank so that the other car could squeeze its way uphill, nearly grazing the hillside.

There were pine trees, standing so tall that you had to crane your neck to spot their tops nearby. And they huddled so much that the canopy threw a fairly dark cover beneath the trees, light rays finding it hard to squeeze their way through. The silence of the forest was broken by the drone of the car and the occasional bird call.

The car pulled up near the forest rest house and we tumbled out, eager to go down and take our pictures as the light was fading quite suddenly. A pathway from the green gate of the forest rest house led us past a couple of stone buildings and neatly laid out flower beds to a slightly open area from where we could get a glimpse of the valley beneath us.

A slight pause to take the sights in and we were hurrying down winding concrete steps that led is to a small canteen next to another building that was built in 1925 – perhaps to let the Sahibs spend lazy afternoons sipping tea (or some other brew) and munching sandwiches and pakoras while feasting on the heavenly view from a strategic location, hidden from the rest of the world.

The first thing I noticed was the moving mist – thin clouds that were footloose and rising from below to escape the clutches of the tall pines.

Some thought it was billowing smoke from a forest fire – and we had seen a couple of such blazes.But the only thing burning in the vicinity was a gas stove in the canteen where noodles and tea were being prepared and I knew that it was drifting clouds. Some were in a tearing hurry and others slumbering along.

I smiled to myself at the thought of how clouds were so human in behaving so differently, each tugging in different directions. But I was being distracted – my friend Sunil wanted to take pictures of the group and had found someone to click one frame for us, so I had to quickly join the group.

That done, I walked to a quieter corner, away from the prattle to soak in the moment – grey, almost white clouds, green pine leaves, the dark brown trunks with the myriad designs that their bark showed off in competition with the rest of the environment. It was an awesome sight, the clouds combining with the pines to prevent a clear view of the valley.

A gentle puff of wind changed the direction of one such cloud drift and I felt some moisture on my cheeks – a special gift from Nature. And then, because there was some hint of rain, we hurried up the steps to the Tavera that was waiting to bring us home.

Indeed, over a period of time your personality traits become so evident on the golf course that you may not need to take an MBTI test or any of those personality tests that HR departments keep administering these days. Most players — successful or not – take their character to the game, every time. And few games reveal a player’s character in a short span of time better than golf.

On a golf course, you are challenging yourself to get better, to conquer conditions that may or may not be familiar and that offers a new adventure every time you get on it. You know that much of the competition will be with yourself and that your commitment to the game is a commitment to the challenges that the game brings along.

Above all, you readily accept that adversity is a part of life, if not a way of life. That is what makes you feel undeterred by challenges. On the contrary, you may decide to not see these as threats but as opportunities and make the most of it.

Is all this not so similar to what you do at work and in life at large? Come to think of it, the next time you are on course for a round of golf, play as well as you can but also remember how it such a wonderful mirror, reflecting your own approach to situations in life. How you handle the challenge of getting the ball out of bunkers can tell you how you resolve crisis. If you approach a difficult approach shot, for instance, with a calm mind, you are telling yourself that greater composure in life can only do you good.

There are times when the rub of the green favours you and you learn to accept good fortune with as much grace as you face misfortune. Take preparation. It is a good wager that you would look to wear the right kind of clothes, shoes and make the best selection of clubs to make up your bag. It is also a fair bet that before you address the ball to play a shot, you visualise the swing, the point of impact of the club on the golf ball, the exact amount of power you will impart to the stroke and the behaviour of the ball on being hit. To be sure, how you prepare for a round of golf can actually guide you to preparing for the challenges at work – and in life itself.

Or, consider how sharp your focus and how intense your concentration need to be on the golf course. If you can stretch such focus, concentration and commitment to life, you will see perceptible difference to your own lifestyle.

On the course, time management would come quite naturally to you. From reaching the course well before the assigned time to tee off on the first hole to hitting a few golf balls on the driving range or sinking a few putts on the practice green; from pacing yourself on the fairways so you do not hold up the group behind you for ever while you contemplate your shot to generally making optimum use of the time on the course can be so reflective of how well you manage your own time even away from the course.

You see resilience, doing whatever it takes to get the ball through 18 holes – and playing fair all the time. And, in doing that, you learn to protect yourself from the pain of losing. It is not as if you never lose in golf or in life but you learn to leave little to chance or luck, preparing well for the game.

Above all, if you can control your emotions on the golf course, you can surely do it at work, too. Indeed, if you are prone to not being composed in the face of adversity, you may like to play some golf to try and help you calm your nerves. Yes, embrace golf and get to know yourself better.

It is a bit of a pity that in a team sport, everyone all but overlooks the importance of team-work and pays much attention to impressive individual statistics and records tend to make everyone. The story is no different in Formula One racing where the media coverage has nearly always focused on personalities and skills of the drivers when the fact is that no one would win races, let alone become World Champion, without teamwork both behind the scenes and on the track.

To be sure, even in individual sport, there is a support team that is backing the performer. Tennis legend Rod Laver, the only man to win the Grand Slam twice, talked about the encouragement he got from team-mates Roy Emerson and Mel Anderson. “I worked well to encouragement and I responded well to the positive example,” he said. Modern champions, of course, have a small army of support staff working with them – coaches, trainers, physiotherapists, mind trainers and nutritionists to name a few.

Indeed, the importance of team-work in sport – or for that matter in life – can never be over-stated. Teams – and organisations – must ensure that their environments are not charged with too much negative energy, poor stress/recovery habits, work/life balance issues, confidence, burnout and subtle forms of self-sabotage. For all these can cause a person to under-perform on the job. This makes the difference between victory and defeat and costs organisations time, productivity and money.

There is no question that the organisational culture is a huge factor in the evolution of team-work. To cite an example, it is no secret that successive Indian cricket team leaders have had to work very hard to make the players come together as one.

So how do sports teams ensure that their environments are conducive to improve team-work? At the outset, the leader of the team clearly spells out the common goals and gets the team-mates to buy into that. Often, the leader decided on the kind of people taken on board the team and usually keeps the difficult elements out. Of course, there are also times when leaders retain such performers in the hope that their positives would outweigh the negatives and they would deliver.
Some of the factors that go towards ensuring a high level of team-work

• Mutual respect for one another’s skills and roles within the team
• Pride in one another’s performance and achievements
• Clear and lucid communications within the group and outside on improving performance
• Co-operation with those around by understanding why they do the things they do
• Building relationships and creating a community with co-workers
• Treating people the way they should be treated
• Having a positive attitude
• Bringing passion into play every day

It is not always possible to blend each of these elements within a team and there are some exceptions. It would help to recall one excellent example of team-work, even in the face of a poor relationship between colleagues. There was a time when Manchester United strikers Teddy Sheringham and Andy Cole fell out and did not speak with one another through two seasons. Despite a lack of communication, they formed a great partnership and ensured that the team won a unique treble the first season and in the next scored a record 97 goals between themselves.

But then, this is just a remarkable exception and most teams succeed when they score high in most of these factors. It may be of help to remember that in cricket a run is scored not only when the striker gets to the other end but also when the non-striker has done his bit and reached the safety of the crease.