The Suresh Kalmadi legacy From IAF pilot to India’s foremost sports administrator

Resourceful but also hugely controversial and almost always in the line of fire. This was Suresh Kalmadi as one of India’s most towering sports administrators in varied roles for over two decades. The former Indian Olympic Association (IOA) President, who breathed his last early this morning in Pune, was a dynamic man, whose command on Indian sports yielded both success and scandal. Born in Madras in 1944, Kalmadi studied at Fergusson College in Pune, the city he went on to represent in the Parliament.

But much before entering politics or taking up sports administration, Kalmadi served in the Indian Air Force from 1964 to 1974, first as a commissioned pilot and then an instructor before retiring as a Squadron Leader. Then came the political journey after being spotted by Sharad Pawar. The Maharashtra-man was appointed Pune Youth Congress chief and later developed close ties with Sanjay Gandhi and former Prime Minster Rajiv Gandhi. After the Congress split in the late 1980s, Kalmadi stayed with the Indian National Congress and was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1982, 1988, 1994 and 1998.

During his tenure as a Rajya Sabha MP, he also served as Union Minister of State for Railways in the PV Narasimha Rao Government in 1995. Kalmadi was elected to the Lok Sabha from Pune in 1996, but lost the seat in the very next general election before making a comeback by winning the 2004 and 2009 polls. However, what brought him fame and a degree of infamy was his transition into the most powerful Indian sports administrator of his time.

He brought several top-class events to the country including the 2003 Afro Asian Games, the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games, the 2010 Commonwealth Games, as well as two Asian Athletics Championships in 1989 and 2013. His tenure as IOA chief lasted from 1996 to 2011, the year allegations of corruption in the conduct of the Commonwealth Games (CWG) were levelled against him, culminating in his arrest. However, in April this year, the Enforcement Directorate filed a closure report in the case, giving him a clean chit.

The mostly soft-spoken and reticent administrator was pushed into international limelight during the scandal and became the face of everything that went wrong in the organisation of the costliest CWG all time while he headed its Organising Committee. He vehemently denied any wrongdoing but those assertions were lost in the public outrage and cacophony of news channel debates.

Despite the lasting damage the charges did to his reputation, it would be unfair to make Kalmadi’s legacy all about the CWG wrongs. As head of the IOA, one of his biggest successes was to revive the National Games. He managed to organise the National Games at regular intervals and at different venues including Pune, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, and Manipur. He was closely associated with Indian athletics, serving as the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) President for 19 years from 1987 to 2006.

During this time, he managed to pull in international track and field stars for eight meets in Delhi from 1989 to 1998. He also helped in organising the Pune International Marathon, which is now a regular fixture. New Delhi also hosted the Asian Athletics Championships in 1989 for the first time in the country’s history. Elected as the Asian Athletics Association (AAA) president in 2001, he launched Asian Grand Prix Athletics meet in 1990.

He also brought Asian Athletics Championships to Pune in 2013 but lost the AAA president’s elections to current chief Dahlan Al Hamad in the polls held just before the continental showpiece at his hometown. He also organised the World Half Marathon in 2004 in New Delhi after becoming the first Indian to get membership of the World Athletics Council from 2001 to 2013. Kalmadi was honoured with the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) award in Beijing in 2008 for his role in spreading awareness on Olympic Games.

One of the highlights of his IOA tenure was India achieving a historic breakthrough at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when shooter Abhinav Bindra won the country’s first ever individual Olympic gold medal. In addition, he was also instrumental in starting the Pune International Film Festival, and the Pune Festival during Ganeshotsav. “...May his contributions to Indian sport always be remembered,” read a condolence message from one of Kalmadi’s former colleagues, summing up the mixed bag that his tenure ended up being for Indian sports.