India may have sent its biggest ever contingent for the Rio Olympics but the collective performance only deteriorated from bad to worse, except for two sparks of brilliance from unexpected quarters. Karthik Raman takes a look at the money India spent on Olympics this time round and the returns from the athletes
Hopes were sky high when the total number of athletes representing India in Rio was announced — 119 — the largest ever contingent, eclipsing even the 83 that went to the london Games in 2012.
In london, India managed six medals — the best ever in terms of medal count. With an even bigger set of athletes travelling to Rio, many were anticipating the medals tally to at least touch the double digit.
But, the nation was brought down to earth in the first few days of the Big Games.
After seeing the women’s Archery team falling in the quarterfinal stage, combined with the women’s shooters Apurvi Chandela and Ayonika Paul crashing out in the opening round, the crash site started expanding agonisingly fast.
It got even worse after the shooters who were the country’s main medal getter in the past few Olympics, drew a blank.
Things only got worse from there as medal hopefuls, Rohan Bopanna-leander Paes crashed out in the first round of tennis and Sania Mirza-Bopanna went down in the Bronze play-off as tennis players returned home empty handed.
The biggest shock, however, came in badminton, when london Bronze medallist Saina Nehwal bowed out in the group stage, leaving the entire nation in tears.
Was this collective below-par performance due to lack of financial support and infrastructureIJ No you may say if a survey of financial spends on Rio-bound athletes is done.
Here’s a graph of the whopping funds provided to athletes from 2012 to 2016:
Overall, the central funding given to national sports federations (NSFs) by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports from 2012 to December 2015 was Rs 482 crore.
This money was used for training sportspersons, especially for the Target Olympic Podium (TOP) scheme under the National Sports Development Fund (NSDF). About 67 sports federations received central funding during this period.
Among them, the National Rifle Association of India (Rs 43 crore) and the Wrestling Federation of India (Rs 32 crore) were the biggest spenders.
The financial assistance provided to sportspersons by the NSDF between 2012 and December 2015 was Rs 22 crore.
In 2015-16, Rs 122 crore were spent on sportspersons, NSDF, foreign coaches’ salaries and national coaching camps. Of this, Rs 8 crore was given to sportspersons, Rs 57 crore to NSDF and Rs 56 crore to organise national camps and foreign coaches’ salaries.
Prior to the start of the Rio Olympics, Sports Minister Vijay Goel said that Rs 45 crore was kept as budget under the TOP scheme to help the athletes.
“This time, we ran a Target Olympic Podium (TOP) scheme under which there were over 100 players and Rs 45 crore was kept as budget. The scheme will also continue for 2020 and 2024 Olympics,” he said.
“Whatever facilities were needed, we have given those. The best Indian coach, foreign coach, foreign training and equipments and good monthly salary, coach fee was also hiked from Rs 50,000 to Rs 2 lakhs,” he added.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also said in the run up to Rio that the budget had been increased for Olympic bound athletes from previous years.
“We have spent Rs 30 lakh to Rs 1.5 crore per player for training. The earlier Olympic budget used to be around Rs 20 crore but this time it has been exceeded up to 125 crore,” he said.
However, a report by a Parliament panel reveals that the Centre and States together invest only 3 paise per person per day for sports and that this is costing India medals at the Olympics.
Compared to other countries, this is very low. The US spends a whopping Rs 22 a day per person, the UK spends 50 paise and even Jamaica 19 paise.
After losing his medal to a whisker, 2008 Gold medallist Abhinav Bindra hit out at the system followed in India by claiming that a lot of investment is needed to bag medals.
“Each medal costs the UK £5.5 million ($7.13 million). That’s the sort of investment needed. let’s not expect much until we put systems in place at home,” Bindra said on Twitter.
The 33-year-old may be right as the country indeed took till the 13th day to bag their first medal — an unexpected Bronze by Sakshi Malik in the 58kg wrestling category.
However, Indian shooter Ronjan Sodhi, who was part of the 2012 Olympics, does not believe the country is let down by lack of assistance.
“We have been supported immensely by the Government and the Federation, especially people who qualified for the Olympics. As far as lack of support is concerned, that’s not true. All athletes who were at Rio have been well supported by NSDF over the last few years. Most of the shooters train abroad so lack of exposure also does not come into the picture,” he said.