Author: Boria Majumdar

The Paris Olympics are done, and it is time to go home. While the Indian campaign has been modest, team RevSportz has done its absolute best here at the Games. As a young organisation less than three years old, we had made an ambitious plan for Paris. To get a team of seven to the Olympics was considered crazy. How could we spend so much money? How would we generate so much revenue? Is this model of getting seven journalists to a Games sustainable? Honestly, as founder and editor-in-chief, I did not have answers to these questions. All I knew…

Boria Majumdar in Paris Just hours before the closing ceremony of Paris 2024, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) issued the following statement: “The Indian Olympic Association President Dr PT Usha today clarified that the responsibility of weight management of athletes in sports like wrestling, weightlifting, boxing and judo is that of each athlete and his or her coach and NOT that of the IOA-appointed Chief Medical Officer Dr. Dinshaw Pardiwala and his team. Dr. Usha said that each Indian athlete in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in such sport had his or her own support team. These support teams have…

Boria Majumdar in Paris As a journalist, you are supposed to be objective. Our job is to report and state facts. And yet, at times, it becomes difficult. Impossible almost. When you see a Vinesh Phogat lose out because of 100 grams, or a Nishant Dev miss out to a bad decision, you are often conflicted and forced to abandon that tag of objectivity. That’s what an Olympic Games is all about. As the Games come to an end, I want to draw attention to four such moments which left me in pain. Heartbreaks are natural in sport, and that’s…

Boria Majumdar in Paris As a student of history, I love my artefacts. And a trip to Omega House in Paris takes you down memory lane. From the 1932 watch which was used to time-keep at the LA Olympics to how the timekeeping process changed over time to make sure that no athlete was at a disadvantage, it is a beautifully curated installation that has been a high point for me in Paris in the middle of all the hustle of sport. Located at Hotel de Poulpry in a narrow bylane, you might miss Omega House if you aren’t told…

Boria Majumdar in Paris At the time of writing, 9 pm Paris time, we still don’t have the operational outcome of the Vinesh Phogat hearing. What we do have, however, is an incredible effort from Aman Sehrawat, who won bronze in the 57kg freestyle wrestling at the age of 21. This medal serves as a beacon of hope for the sport, especially after what happened to Vinesh. From the very start of the bout, Aman looked in control. Except for the first 40 seconds, always his weak point, he never gave up control of the fight. By midway in the…

Boria Majumdar at the Stade de France Between August 7 and August 8, 2024 most newspapers in the country carried details of the Vinesh Phogat disqualification as front-page news. This was the main Olympic story of the Games from the Indian perspective. The Games are all wrong, and the men and women who run it are worse. Not so after August 8. On August 9, the day after Neeraj Chopra won his second consecutive Olympic medal, every newspaper will have pages dedicated to him. For the next few days, it will be Neeraj and hockey. Television channels will do the…

Boria Majumdar in Paris India make back-to-back podiums in the Olympic Games and PR Sreejesh finishes with a medal. That’s the story. No one deserves it more than Sreejesh and after 20 years, we will no longer see him in India colours going forward. But before that, he made sure that his house was protected and he has given us the coveted Olympic medal once more. Sreejesh had entered the pitch alone an hour ahead of the game and even went to the goalpost to have a silent word. It was as if he was wanting to say a final…

Boria Majumdar in Paris It was 2:30am in Paris, and I had fallen asleep. It had been one of the hardest days of my three-decade-long sports media career, and I just wanted it to end. Normally, I sleep by around midnight, and this was no different. I don’t know why, but around 2:30am, the phone pinged. Seeing that the message was from my sister in the US, I decided to check it. And my mind went numb. ‘Vinesh has retired’ was all she had written. I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I went back to her tweet, and…

Boria Majumdar If Vinesh Phogat is a catastrophe, Antim Panghal is a smaller bump for sure. Each one of us had pegged her as a possible Olympic medallist,even more so after the draw was announced. However, she did not even survive a minute and a half against a relatively unfancied opponent and lost 0-10. Her opponent lost in the very next round, proving that it was Antim who was nowhere near her potential. Sources say that Antimjust about managed to make the 53kg weight limit. If Vinesh fell short by a 100 grams, Antim just about made it. But in…

Boria Majumdar in Paris ‘Her career is over,’ whispered the stretcher-bearer. Just minutes before, Vinesh Phogat had been leading in her 2016 Olympic quarter-final match against her Chinese opponent, Sun Yanan, in the 48kg category. Now, she was screaming while being carried away from the mat on a stretcher. It was around 11 am in Rio on August 16, 2016. Vinesh had started the bout well, having won her pre-quarter-final earlier in the day fairly convincingly. Many had tipped her to break India’s medal jinx at the 2016 Olympics, and it was no surprise that the entire Indian media contingent…