India can learn from Thai success

Instead of going abroad, the Thai lifters trained in the countryside, with only nature to distract them.

Thailand sure knows how to treat its Olympic heroes. Even as the plane carrying the contingent from Athens landed at Bangkok airport, the Thai people laid out a red carpet for the team which included three gold, one silver and four bronze-medallists.

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A cash award of 18 million baht (approx Rs 20 million), a monthly salary of 10,000 baht for for the next 10 years, free air tickets worth a million bahts are some of the perks the Thai people want to spoil their gold-medallists with.

The Thai Queen came to the airport, garlanded them and took them in convertibles to the Government house, where the PM felicitated them. A hotel owner has gone a step further by announcing that the entire contingent will be housed for a week, all expense paid, irrespective of the fact whether they have won a medal or not. The locals justify the largesse saying this contingent has done what its predecessors couldn't. "They have made us the fourth biggest sporting power in Asia," said a local.

A leading English daily changed it's main page layout and called the performance of the athletes stupendous. "It has signalled the rise of woman power (women won a majority of the medals -- 2 gold and 2 bronze." Interestingly, lifting became a part of the national sports curriculum on a decade back.