Indian sports: 2015 is going to be an exciting year

The start of every year holds huge promise for the sporting fraternity in India. As the sun sets on 2014, it’s time for all Indian athletes to look at new goals, new milestones and new frontiers to be conquered in the next 12 months.

Undoubtedly, the hype in 2015, to a huge extent, will revolve around the Indian cricket team. As the defending champions of the ICC World Cup, Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s team will be looked at with huge hope. It is one thing to do badly in Test cricket and quite another when Team India dons the blue jersey and plays in the 50-over format. If you take a look at the performance of the Indian team after the 2011 World Cup, it has been good.

Winning the Champions Trophy in England last year, beating the Englishmen in the ODI series this summer after losing the Tests and recent performances at home indicate the side can raise the bar in Australia and New Zealand in the first quarter of 2015.

Sport has a lot to do with spontaneity and skipper Dhoni will have the blessings and best wishes of millions from home who will hope the team can retain the World Cup. I must admit I am not a hard core cricket fan, but this is a sport which connects with the masses. The following for it is so huge, even those are not chronic cricket fans will somehow or the other get dragged into it as this is what will be talked about for close to two months next year. Moving away from cricket, 2014 has been a good year for Indian sport. There have been some fantastic achievements in other sporting arenas. Today, everyone has heard the name of pistol shooter Jitu Rai and, for the shooting community, the next 12 months are very important.

One should not read too much into the performance of Indian shooters in the Commonwealth Games and Incheon Asian Games. For most of the Indian shooters, the big year is 2015, where Olympic quota places are at stake.

This is the time when shooters will strive hard to make the cut and, in the global sport that shooting is today, the task is tough but not impossible. Personally, I feel all the best inputs need to be used, so that we can build on our past achievements. I have always maintained that sport needs to be run in a clean manner and funding from the government is very important. The cost involved for any shooter to win a medal in the international arena is huge. Proper funding and foreign exposure are vital so that a shooter can maximise his or her chances of giving the best. If you take a look at shooting as a global sport, the standards are going up every day, so for the Indians to make a mark requires a lot of hard work.

I am very happy the Indian hockey team won gold at the Incheon Asian Games and has a direct berth for the 2016 Rio Olympics. What this means is the team gets so much additional time to train well and focus on the big challenge ahead.

As an Olympic sport, hockey is changing. From the colour of the turf to adjustment in rules and so on, today the hockey players and coaches have to be familiar with a lot of new things. The coming year is important for our hockey in terms of getting better in every sense, so that they can compete hard with the European teams and the Aussies in Rio.

From athletics to boxing and archery to weightlifting, almost for every Olympic sport, 2015 is a year of consolidation. This is the time when athletes will stretch every sinew to ensure they make the Olympic grade.

Like shooting, this will be a chance for our proven stars like Sushil Kumar, Yogeshwar Dutt, Mary Kom and colleagues to get sharper. Experience is something which comes in so handy at the highest level, and at the same time, the seasoned players are rubbing shoulders with the younger lot to peak at the right time.

The Indian recurve archers didn’t have a good outing in Incheon and maybe the New Year will be an opportunity for them to ensure they shoot well enough to make the Olympic grade. Unlike 2014, there are no big multidiscipline sporting events in the next 12 months, so the Indian athletes will get the chance to focus more on the Rio Olympics qualification goals rather than worry about winning medals for India.

Looking at the results we have achieved in badminton in the last two years, there is every reason to hope for new heights to be scaled. If Saina Nehwal is the superstar aiming for more glory, the energetic PV Sindhu is close behind. Surely, the next year will see these two ladies compete hard in the Super Series events as well as a major like the All England Championship.

Saina and Sindhu have truly put Indian badminton on the world map and we now have Kidambi Srikanth also proving himself so well. I am sure P Kashyap and company will also bring cheer for badminton followers in the coming year as the depth and talent base is now there for all to see.

I am also hoping that in the New Year, we hear less about politics in sport so that the federations, the sports ministry and the Indian Olympic Association can work constructively for the betterment of athletes. 

What do I say about myself and my goals for 2015? Well, I am certainly going to give it my best shot and hope I can qualify for the Rio Olympics. People have been asking me about my training, whether it will be twice a week and so on. There are five qualification tournaments in 2015 — four World Cups and the Asian Championships. I will be training in Germany three to four weeks before the World Cups and am hoping that I can make the grade faster, so that I don’t have to travel long distances to a venue like Fort Benning in the United States.

Coming to a high-profile sport like tennis, I am sure star players like Leander Paes, Sania Mirza, Somdev Devvarman and company will hope to achieve glory at the Grand Slams in 2015. The ATP and WTA ranking system will decide who eventually makes the grade for the Rio Olympics in 2016.

Happy New Year to all of you!