I got associated with Olympic Gold Quest, OGQ in 2009 and enjoyed volunteering with them till 2012 London Olympics. During this period I was fortunate to engage with the likes of Gagan Narang, Vijay Kumar, Sanjiv Rajput few other shooters, magnificent Mary Kom and few other male boxers as well. Saaz and me, decided to go for the games and witness the hard work put in by all the Indian athletes trying to win a medal for our country I am glad to say that I was there for see all six medal winning performances from India. I guess London was special because of a large number of local population of Indian origin and I was always in the company of a large number of Indian supporters cheering for our athletes. I will never forget, I didn’t have tickets for Gagan’s medal winning match and I was pitching outside the shooting range with a placard requesting for a ticket and an elderly gentleman came and gave a ticket absolutely free to me. When I tried to pay him for the ticket he said NO son 35GBP is nothing to have an additional Indian cheer leader inside the range. He said I want Gagan to win a medal today come let us go inside and cheer him. Let me say I witnessed similar sentiments and presence of proud Indians in all arenas weather it was Shooting, Boxing, Badminton, Wrestling or Archery since these were the only events I attended. With the increased awareness about Indian performance in Olympic Games our athletes enjoys fairly large following during the games and I am not sure if any goodwill ambassador can help make it better in any way.

I remember after every medal winning performance large number of Indians shall be waiting for hours outside the arena to thank their star and express their gratitude for making India proud. I remember after the Bronze Medal performance of Saina Nehwal a very large number of Indians were waiting at the doors of Badminton arena of Wembley stadium and shouting slogans proudly. The organisers had to take her out in a bus since they were not sure how they will handle the crowd. There were no Chinese crowd waiting outside though Chinese girls won Gold and Silver, both. Indian fans had to content with the coach P Gopichand only and thank him for helping Saina win that medal. In fact when Gagan won the medal Abhinav Bindra also came and joined the crowd waiting for Gagan to come out and congratulate him and that made that long wait very special. I can tell you more stories like this for other winners as well.

Now imagine a scenario when Gagan Narang wins another medal in Rio and our goodwill ambassador, Mr Being Human comes around to join the party, either outside the arena or inside the arena! There is a very good chance that he will steal all the attention to increase his own brand value and our winning athlete will become a second fiddle at that special moment. Fans will be more ken to have a selfie with the Bollywood star then the athlete.

Olympic is a very special platform and our athletes work very hard to emerge as a winner and we must celebrate that occasion by keeping them in the center and not steal the moment from them. Having been to London games, I feel we don’t need any Bollywood star, cricketer or any other celebrity to make the occasion special. That platform belongs to our athletes and let them be the king of the ring and create their own star power through their success and failures. As Mr Milkha Singh says all our athletes participating in Rio games are our goodwill ambassadors and we should celebrate through their power only.

Further, I believe Mr. Khan is keen to be a goodwill ambassador not because he loves Olympic sports but because he actually wishes to use this international platform to promote his next film, based on the life of a wrestler, although he has started another one with “feeling raped” comment. I won’t be surprised if his producers actually lobbied for this ambassadorship. If somebody like him is famous for beating his girlfriends, killing poor people on pavement, illegal killing of wildlife etc can still retain his popularity in the masses then using Olympic Games to further his commercial gains shall not be difficult at all.