This year, India is sending its biggest track and field contingent to the Olympics. The team head for Rio will have as many as 36 athletes, almost double the number that had qualified four years ago. Understandably, this has sparked some interest among the public, and there is a steadily rising wave of support for the contingent but while we must, of course, cheer for our athletes, there is unfortunately little evidence to suggest that any one of them may bring home a medal.
The cold fact of the matter remains that while India may have improved its game this year, it is still far behind those who are slated to cross the finish line first. Track and field events are particularly competitive with top class participants from around the world; and India simply isn’t there yet. Take, for example, Dutee Chand who is perhaps carrying the heaviest expectation burden given how hard she had to work for her spot.
Chand had to fight and win a lengthy court battle against the International Association of Athletics Federations which had banned her from the field after she was found to have higher than acceptable levels of testosterone. In the process, she lost an entire year but has now returned to the field in full force. She broke her own record to qualify for Rio but it is unlikely that she will win a medal – the consensus here is if she even makes it to the semi-finals that will be a big deal. That said, let’s not forget that Chand is the first Indian female athlete to qualify for the 100m dash in Olympics in 36 years.
PT Usha was the last Indian female to have run this race -- at the Moscow Games in 1980 – and even she had failed to make a mark. She did better though at the 1984 Games in los Angeles but still missed the medal in the 400m hurdles by a fraction of a second – and yet even that record remains unbroken today. It is high time that India ask itself: Where, among its billion plus population, are its track and field athletesIJ