A firebrand Geet Sethi of circa 2000 appeared quite mellowed and pleased at the C.K. Nayudu Hall, Cricket Club of India on Friday evening. Now 50, and 10 years after he founded brand "Olympic Gold Guest’’ with a visionary zeal with badminton legend Prakash Padukone, the cue sports maestro Sethi said the objectives set out by the promoters of OGQ has become a reality. But a bit retrained he told Yes Bank officials in the course of a motivational lecture as to why he became angry in 1998 after the Bangkok Asian Games and extremely critical of India’s sporting system in 2000 soon after the Olympic Games in Sydney. Sethi made his Asian Games debut memorable winning a gold and silver medal in doubles and singles English billiards. Cue sports became a medal sport at Bangkok.
Sethi began saying: "I got a first exposure to a multi-sport even being part of a strong 400 plus strong official Indian contingent at Bangkok. Of course there were 180 athletes and 240 officials. For the first time I saw for myself the lackadaisical attitude of the officials and inefficiencies of Indian sport. That made an indeliable impact on me. I became vociferous and used all opportunities to speak against the system, government and federations. I became a nuisance to some. Then at the Sydney Olympics, at a dinner function, I saw complete despair in the eyes of the Indian athletes. They knew they had not been given enough training and were 30 to 40 % less than the benchmark. Karnam Malleshwari was the only Indian who won a medal (bronze) at Sydney."
After the lecture Sethi told The Hindu that Bangkok 1998 had created a "completely negative mindset’’ about the way India’s athletes were treated and of the system. Landing in Mumbai from Sydney in 2000, Sethi boarded the first flight to Bangalore, met Padukone and impressed upon him the need to do something for India’s neglected sportspersons.
"I had become very vociferous and shouted about the system. I said to myself enough of talking and the time had come to do something. Prakash is the enternal gentleman of Indian sport. He agreed to my thoughts and soon the "Foundation for Promotion of Sports and Games’’ was formed with a brand "Olympic Gold Quest."
Two years (1998-2000) of lambasting the system, lambasting the government and lambasting the federations…and the end result was nothing. The intention of OGQ was to bridge the gap between India’s best athletes and the best athletes in the world."
There was only meagre response though from people ready to contribute to the fund in spite of the OGQ using every platform to propagate its mission. "Nothing happened for five to six years until 2006 when we met Shitin Desai (Vice-Chairman DSP Merrill Lynch Ltd.) and R.Ramaraj (Senior Advisor, Sequoia Capital India). They opened the cheque book and straightaway pledged Rs.25 lakh each. Thereby began the amalgamation of the sporting and corporate world. There was a sporting ethos in the OGQ keen on making a vision into a reality. Today it’s a reality. Every penny raised by OGQ is spent only on the sportspersons," said Sethi.
Urging the audience to see a two-minute audio-visual where the Indian tricolour is used as a leitmotif and the achievements of some of India’s sports achievers are captured, Sethi said: "We are all emotionally driven at the OGQ. It’s very emotional moment when the India flag goes up and the national anthem is played. It makes all Indians proud. It instills emotional pride. Why should it be only one emotionally charged moment and one individual gold in 60 odd years; why not 60 emotionally charged moments in one year."
Viren Rasquinha, Chief Operations Officer, OGQ reflected unbridled passion while elaborating the obligation to support India’s sportspersons, raise awareness and money. He talked about OGQ’s support for Gagan Narang, Sajeev Rajput, Vijay Kumar,Omkar Singh Tejaswini Sawant, Annu, Rekha, and Rakesh Manpat, Saina Nehwal, Guru Sai Dutt, P.V.Sindhu, Sai Praneeth and P.Kashyap, Mary Kom, Usha Nagisetty, Sanjay Kolte, Nanao Singh, Suranjoy Singh, Shiv Thapa and the P.T.Usha’s School of Athletics.
"Recently we bought a rifle at Rs.1,80,000 for Rakesh Manpat, a promising shooter. He’s being trained for the 2016 Olympics. The money was raised through the 'Power Your Champion' programme. The target is to reach one million Indians. An individual has to pledge Rs.100 per month. We have received commitments for Rs. 12 lakh. Gagan has been outstanding and our challenge is to keep him in top condition for the London Olympics. Saina Nehwal is 95 % fit. Nanao Singh went out of action because of a finger injury, but he underwent a surgery and spent many months in rehabilitation. He won medals in the first competition post-injury at the National Games in Jharkhand. There’s also a great story in boxer Usha Nagisetty."
Rasqinha said OGA’s primary aim is to identify athletes in individual sport who have a bright chance to win gold medal at the Olympics. "I think Mary Kom has a real good chance of winning it at London. She will fight in the 51 kg category. All this can happen through the Power Your Champion programme and anyone can contribute through an OGQ linked mandate form at >http://www.olympicgoldquest.in/ogq/contribution.htm . I thank Yes Bank for joining us in this programme."
The OGQ team consists of Geet Sethi, Prakash Padukone, Leander Paes, Viswanathan Anand, Niraj Bajaj, R.Ramaraj, Shitin Desai, Rakesh Khanna, Neeraj Bharadwaj, Deepika Padukone and Viren Rasquinha.
