Despite the uplifting performances by gymnast Dipa Karmakar, wrestler Sakshi Malik and shuttler PV Sindhu, India's overall performance at the Olympics in Rio has been horrendous. Sports in India is broken, and we need to fix it
This is neither the first nor will it be the last hand-wringing piece written on the cringe-inducing performance at these Olympics by India. However, at the very outset, let it be made clear that this is not an attack on the athletes. The tremendous sacrifices our athletes have made throughout their lives, and not just them, the sacrifices their parents, siblings and coaches have made must also be celebrated.
And so what if people take a few selfiesIJ Michael Phelps took a selfie with Novak Djokovic, but you would not accuse either of those men of not giving their best. Heck, America’s new sweetheart Simone Biles is a selfie star. These are young men and women on possibly one of the biggest moments of their lives, and unfortunately selfies are a modern affliction. Big deal.
However, the fact remains that for a nation of 1.25 billion people which sent 155 athletes in 15 disciplines to the Olympics this time, a return of a silver and a bronze medal seems pitiful. Make no mistakes Sakshi Malik and PV Sindhu put up valiant efforts. On the day, Sindhu played her remarkable final against the ultimately victorious Spanish woman Carolina Marin, a majority of this country was tuned in watching badminton. And despite the relative success of the sport (invented in Pune, no less) that Indians have had, that was quite a feat.
But everywhere else, it seemed that Indians made valiant efforts and lost. Again, all of the athletes who wore our country’s colours have strived and sacrificed immensely to have made it to Rio and most of them had qualified fair and square.
After the six medals at london 2012, the fact that India was sending her largest delegation was seen as a matter of pride and progress. However, the progress that India made was nothing compared to the leaps and bounds made by Great Britain and the dominance of the United States. If Donald Trump wants to make America Great ‘Again’; the Olympics were a repudiation of that statement. America’s dominance at the top of the medal tables is a tremendous display of soft power.
If we truly aspire to be a ‘big’ country, a superpower even, it cannot be solely due to economic heft and military might, there has to be a sporting and cultural element to it. Our various movie industries have the cultural bit down pat, but sporting successIJ Other than cricket, the cupboard is fairly bare.
In 1984, when China returned to the Olympics after a 32-year self-imposed exile, it stormed back to win 15 gold medals. Sure, the 1984 Olympics were lopsided due to the boycott by the Eastern Bloc, but those 15 golds were a statement of intent by the People’s Republic. And in the 32 years since then, China has not only become an Olympic superpower it has become a global economic superpower.
There will be tens of editorials with multiple recommendations on how to fix Indian sport. There will be social media campaigns demanding that the Ministry of Sport be shut down. However, fixing sports will have to be done with the International Olympic Committee’s blessings, otherwise India and Indian sporting associations run the risk of being disqualified.
Despite the IOC demanding sports bodies not be touched, it is unlikely that they will ever question China or Russia. The last time the Government intervened was to fix the mess in Indian hockey and while that was a good thing and Indian hockey has taken long strides back, in a hyper-competitive world countries like Argentina which won the gold medal at Rio have taken even bigger strides.
Not all Indian sports associations should be tarred with the same brush. The Badminton Association of India in 2006 decided to make Pullela Gopichand the head coach of India and despite a player revolt against his methods in the early days, stuck by the All-England champion — and we have seen the emergence of Saina Nehwal, PS Sindhu and Srikanth Kidambi. Yet, much more money needs to be sunk in Gopichand’s academy for the future to remain bright.
There have to changes driven from the very top for India’s sporting success. Our Prime Minister has spoken about the potential of India’s youth, but these young people should be out there winning international honours for the country. One believes that Modi realises this and puts some of the top brains he has at his disposal towards fixing this problem.
But the biggest change that has to be made is in the attitude of parents. Your columnist has said this before, many children are extremely talented sportspersons, but thanks to a perverse system which rewards a career as a mediocre engineer over that of a successful sportsperson, parents discourage participation. Sports becomes a means to an end, some athletes want to get into national-level sports to snag a Government job. Not to fly the flag on a foreign field.
And the second major change, and this is happening slowly, is to increase private sector participation in sport. Several companies notably JSW Steel and Apollo Tyres have promoted sports, and sports television network Star Sports has made several attempts, not always successful, to set up professional sports leagues. But why can’t contributions to recognised sports academies be made tax-deductibleIJ Why can’t more private companies sponsor athletes as part of their corporate social responsibilityIJ
If India wants to stand up and be counted, it has to garner some success on the sports fields of the world. We cannot lament about the dominance of cricket. Keep in mind that dominance was achieved thanks to a glorious fluke at lord’s in 1983. It is thanks to the smart minds that leveraged cricket afterwards that it has become so successful. Success begets success, yet we have to start somewhere and it will take all of us to put in an effort here. Not just the Government and not just administrators.