lessons for India from Glasgow Games results
While we must celebrate the triumph of gold medals in the men's singles badminton championship, the women's doubles squash event, the discus throw and in the other events where we finished on top of the podium, the fact is that with a tally of 15 golds at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, India has ended up with its lowest figure ever since 1998. At the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, it had bagged 38 gold medals. The number of total medals too has sharply dipped — from 101 in 2010 to just 65 now — and we ended up in the fifth position in the medal list. Compare this to the second spot we occupied in the 2010 Games, and the slide is evident. The unsatisfactory performance is capped by the fact that our famed pugilists failed to win even a single gold medal in Glasgow. Various reasons are been forwarded for the less than glorious performance. It is being pointed out that the strength of the Indian contingent at Glasgow was just 215, whereas in the Delhi games it had been 495. In other words, few athletes participated this time around and, therefore, the slump in the medal tally is explainable. This is a lame excuse, because excellence when it matters most and not a large contingent fetches medals. The other explanation being touted is that a number of disciplines where India had the upper hand were either scrapped or pruned for the Glasgow event. The medal events for shooting were culled from 44 to just 19; while archery, tennis and Greco-Roman wrestling were scrapped. India had done exceptionally well in 2010 is both archery and shooting. We are working on the assumption that the country should always remain dependent on a handful of sports to get medals while it plods along anonymously in the others. It is not fair to over-burden our participants in select disciplines with the expectation of medals, and then blame them for the low tally.
The story of under-performance lies elsewhere. It is in the failure of our sports administrators to capitalise on the momentum of the 2010 sterling performance. The Delhi CWG performance could have been the springboard; now it threatens to look like a flash in the pan. The utter mismanagement in various sports bodies, evident in the controversies that the many federations have been hit by and the sordid episode of de-recognition for a while of the Indian Olympic Association, have hit the morale of our sports community. The callousness of some of our administrators has set back by many years, efforts to create a conducive sports culture in the country. Former eminent sportspersons who have the desire to manage sports bodies and bring in their unique experiences for the general good of athletes, have either been shut out or discouraged by the games that sports associations play.
Adding insult to injury is that, while Indian athletes battle competition on the field and official apathy off it, some administrators engage in conduct that brings a bad name to the country and diminishes the glow of the players. We have had a couple of such alleged incidents in Glasgow, but they have not been the first — and will not be the last, unless the Government revamps our sports structure and makes it merit-driven, not entitlement-based.