KOCHI: On a day the 31st Summer Olympics was set to conclude in Rio de Janeiro, the ‘Olympian Meet’ in Kochi was meant to be in honour of sportspersons who had graced the world’s biggest sporting stage in the past.
While the likes of O Chandrasekharan, T C Yohannan, Mercy Kuttan, M D Valsamma, Rosa Kutty, K M Binu and Ambika Radhika were a beaming lot to begin with, they were left twitching in their seats as the function progressed.
Their cause for discomfort? The descriptions of their achievements repeatedly fell off the mark. Their respective events, along with the venue and year of Olympic participation were all jumbled up. If that was not embarrassing enough, they were asked to wind up their acceptance speeches ‘in a few words,’ after the other dignitaries had had a free run in the event organised by the Ernakulam District Sports Council to honour former Olympians. Consider these announcements: T C Yohannan represented India in football in the 1960 Rome Olympics. (Quickly corrected to O Chandrasekharan).
M D Valsamma had won gold in the 4 m hurdles in the 1982 Asian Games (400 m hurdles). Valsamma and Rosa Kutty had competed in the 100 m relay (when it was 4x400 m relay).
The Olympic years and venues made for pathetic hearing. For instance, ‘1970 Montreal Olympics’ (it was 1976) and ‘1990 Atlanta Olympics’ (it was 1996)! In fact, the same Olympics was attributed to different years.
To their great credit, the veterans sat through the function which also saw speakers like Kerala High Court Judge B Kemal Pasha, Hibi Eden MLA, Kochi Customs Commissioner K N Raghavan and Kerala Cricket Association president T C Mathew paying tributes to the Olympians’ efforts and lamenting the lack of a proper sports system.
The athletes were graceful enough to accept the ‘honour’, but did make a few cryptic comments in their short speeches.
“People often ask why are we not winning more medals. To that I have a counter question - what are we doing for sports?” asked M D Valsamma.
“We have had enough meetings, and I too don’t want to speak much. I hope things would not end with such a programme,” said Mercy Kuttan, the newly-elected vice-president of the Kerala State Sports Council, who had competed in the 1988 Seoul Olympics in the 400 m.
With a choked voice, Yohannan - the first Asian long jumper to cross 8 metres - recounted that such a meeting of Olympians was being held after ten years.
An emotional Rosa Kutty, who represented the country in the 1996 Atlanta and 2000 Sydney Olympics reminisced, “I remember the days when we didn’t have the resources to even eat properly. We have achieved whatever we did after great suffering.”