India at Beijing: The good, the bad, and the ugly

Abhishek Singh Samant

At the recent Olympics held in the land of Dragon, the Elephant finally got off the blocks. After more than one billion births and 108 years, India won its first individual Gold at the quadrennial event. If I say individual Gold, then it should not be assumed that we have been winning the yellow metal in team events over decades. In fact, this is the first time since 1980 that we have won a Gold medal (we won Gold in Hockey then). Further, with three medals to show at Beijing Olympics 2008, this is India’s best performance ever at the Games.The good and its effect Shooter Abhinav Bindra gave India its first ever individual Gold while Vijender Kumar punched his way to a bronze in boxing. Sushil Kumar completed the medal tally for India when he finished third in wrestling. Their achievements can, and the celebrations and interest in the Games clearly reflected, herald a dawn of sporting culture in the country. No doubt, the victory of these three sportspersons will result in several kids aiming to emulate them. Their achievements have made them millionaires overnight. This will motivate youngsters to pursue sports as a viable career option.

	Related Stories
	Olympics and India: Culture needs a lift Michael Phelps: Born Special China: The Gold Factory Beijing Olympics: Ripples – I One gold…a billion hopes Beijing Olympics: Ripples – II Cricket in Olympics: Bring it on! I have never been to a cinema hall: Sushil Kumar

Pessimists may not agree with me and opine that three sportspersons can hardly bring a sea change in India’s sporting fortunes. But it must be noted that success breeds success. A role model, an achiever in a sport is a prerequisite to inspire others to pursue the game. In cricket, today’s generation of players have Sachin Tendulkar to emulate, who in turn had Sunil Gavaskar to look up to. Leander Paes had Vijay Amritraj and Ramesh Krishnan, and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore was the inspiring light for Abhinav Bindra. The interest and excitement generated in boxing can be compared to the interest reserved for cricket. I have never seen people gathering at paan shops, hair saloons and standing outside TV showrooms to watch a boxing match. These are welcome signs for Indian sports. Our athletes have given a ray of hope to the country. The need is to harness this ray to the fullest so that its light is bestowed on every deserving player, which in turn could well transform India into a sporting inferno.The bad Crowned at Commonwealth, drowned at Olympics Our performance at the last Commonwealth Games (CWG), in Melbourne, had raised great hopes about our performance at the Olympics. But almost the same old story was repeated at Beijing. So what explains this paradox? The reasons are pretty clear. In the 2006 CWG, India won 50 medals. Of these, 27 came in shooting, nine in weightlifting, three in table tennis, five in boxing, three in athletics and two in badminton. Cut to 2008 and we have one medal each in shooting, boxing and wrestling. A close look at the medals tally would reveal that none of the medallists at the shooting events in Beijing was from the Commonwealth nations (except India in the men’s 10m air rifle and Australia in the men’s 50m rifle prone). So we see that the top shooters are not from the former British colonies and it is the countries outside who pose the real challenge. Here, it may be noted that Indian shooters have won medals at the World Championships, considered to be the ultimate thing in shooting. So it might not be an outright case of our marksmen being below par but inability to handle pressure of expectations at such a high key affair. Same is the case with other sports too. In CWG, India mostly won medals is events where the participating countries were not strong enough. Australia and England are strong in swimming and thus India had nothing to boast about in the pool. We were just able to open our account in track and field at the CWG, which is a stronghold of the Caribbean nations. We won in table tennis, a game dominated by China, a country outside the realm of Commonwealth. Our two medals in badminton at Melbourne didn’t reveal the true picture. The major power in badminton - Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and China - were not a part of the CWG. The anomaly becomes clearly evident by looking at the top 10 countries at the Beijing Olympics. Only two of the first 10 countries are from the Commonwealth. We should understand this reality and it would be foolhardy to pin high hopes on the Indian contingent on the basis of the performance at the Commonwealth Games. The ugly side Before Olympics Monika Devi episode India at the Olympics without controversy sounds like an oxymoron. It was no different this time also. Despite the fact that we have a paucity of world class athletes, our officials go out of the way to nip whatever talent we have. Just before leaving for Beijing, woman weightlifter Monica Devi was banned for failing a dope test and subsequently banned from the Games. However, she was later cleared of the charge but it was too late. The fallacy and vested interests of our administrators probably cost us a medal.During Olympics Satpal Singh doubling up as masseur for wrestler Sushil Kumar For a contingent of 57 athletes, we sent a team of 42 officials! But we couldn’t afford a professional masseur for our wrestlers. To say that the sight of wrestling coach Satpal massaging Sushil was disgusting, is to put it mildly. If we want to win medals at the world stage we should be concerned about the needs of our players. There is no point sending our administrators for a paid holiday when the expense could be used for the benefit of our sportspersons. After Olympics Bindra’s accusation After winning the Gold medal, shooter Abhinav Bindra shocked everyone by saying that just before the finals, someone tried to tamper with his rifle. If it indeed happened then it is really very shameful and goes against the very spirit of the Olympics. Thankfully, the issue was nipped in the bud or else it would have taken the sheen off India’s performance. He later recommended appointing sports CEO’s with attractive packages so as to keep them from misusing money meant for players. What needs to be done At this moment of ecstasy, we must not let the issues plaguing our sports fade into oblivion. We have to remember that our players won medals not because of the system, but inspite of it. There are several aspects, which, if addressed sincerely, can unleash a wave of medal winners at the London Olympics in 2012. Infrastructure A cursory observation of our sporting facilities would clearly explain our dismal record at the Olympics. The high-on-hype and low-on-substance Tughlaqabad shooting range is anything but a good platform to prepare future Olympians. We don’t have a world class track and field stadium and wrestlers still practice on mats (i.e. if they are fortunate enough to practice on a mat rather than in akharas), which seem to belong to the era of Rustam-e-Hind Gama. The story is same with every sports. A serious overhauling of our sports infrastructure is needed. Sports authorities and government should work in tandem and provide the best possible facilities to our athletes before expecting medals from them. Coaches Irrespective of whatever we say, the quality, efficiency, expertise and importance of foreign coaches is unquestionable. The results bear a testimony to the fact. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore trained under Australian coach Russel Mark and won the Silver medal at Athens.Same goes true for Abhinav ‘Goldfinger’ Bindra. He trained under his Swiss coach Gabriela Buhlmann. The outcome: first individual Gold for India in the history of modern Games. The whole country is rejoicing at the success of our boxers and every one is praising GS Sandhu, the national coach. But behind this success is also the not so evident hand of Cuban BI Fernandez, who has worked relentlessly with the Indian pugilists. Despite this, the number of foreign coaches in India is a mere 18. Out of these, 13 are nearing the end of their contract. No matter how good a horse is, it needs a jockey to successfully guide it to win a race. Same hold true for athletes too. No political interference Sports is war minus guns and it seems Indian administrators (majority of them politicians) have absorbed the saying in its entirety. Selection of athletes for Olympics has always served as a stage for blatant display of nepotism. More often than not, larger interests of the sport and the country are forsaken in pursuance of some selfish interests. Indian sports administrators have turned their respective federations into a fiefdom. Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi has been at the helm of Indian football since 1988. In these 20 years, we haven’t qualified for the World Cup or Olympics. In FIFA rankings too we seem to have fallen into a bottomless pit. This decline cuts across different games. KPS Gill was the president of Indian hockey for almost 15 years. And the performance of the national hockey team during these years has progressed from bad to worse and the climax was reached this year when we failed to qualify for the Olympics, something which has never happened before. The story is more or less the same in all sports. Such scheming administrators are like parasites. They are weakening the very edifice which they are supposed to serve. It is high time that such officials are done away with in the greater interest of the game. Beijing Olympics can prove to be a watershed moment in Indian sports. But for that to happen, all the parties concerned should make a concentrated effort which should go beyond the current publicity garnering announcements. An effort that should stand the rigours of time and be sustained without fail. If it happens no one can stop the Indian elephant from trumpeting at the London Olympics. But if we fail to build on this opportunity, then the Beijing Olympics would turn out to be an aberration, a story of individual brilliance rising above the odds. A story confined to the reams of text books. A story of a silver lining in our sporting history, which is replete with thick dark clouds. For full coverage on BEIJING OLYMPICS, Click Here »