National mood and sports

The Beijing Summer Olympics, the 29th Olympiad Games, scheduled to run from August 8 to August 24 - the opening ceremony of which President Bush plans to attend - is a quadrennial reminder of sports taking a centre stage in the world arena.

That China was willing to risk unwanted scrutiny over Tibet is evidence enough of how the compulsions of national imagery can outweigh issues of political controversy. The Beijing Olympics are intended to showcase and represent China's athletic prowess, its administrative abilities, the efficacy of its system, and its international stature. India is also set to host the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

In Pakistan, sports have played a large part in shaping identity and have had an impact on national self-confidence. According to biographer Hector Bolitho, when the Quaid returned from England upon completing his legal studies, he came with a bat and ball, and urged people living in his locality that, instead of squatting down and playing marbles in the dust, to stand up and play cricket.

Pakistan's cricket victory over England at the Oval in 1954 was hailed as its arrival on the world sporting stage and seen as a coming of age for the infant nation. It took India seven visits to accomplish in 1971 what Pakistan did in its first visit to England in 1954.

This sense of national confidence was further reaffirmed when Pakistan bagged the hockey gold by overcoming India at the Rome Summer Olympics in 1960. It brought unprecedented joy to the nation and reinforced the message that the nation could be competitive on the world stage.