India in Rio Olympics 2016: Reason to celebrate or introspect?

You have to scroll down the rankings to see India at 67^th rank from total 78 countries which participated. The 2^nd most populous country in the world and world’s largest democracy, however, yet again return from the Globe’s largest sports stage “ Olympics “ with only 2 Medals - 1 Silver & 1 Bronze. As a run up to the Olympics we witnessed many sensational news like doping scandal which led to some athletes being barred while some making it through, the story of Sardar Singh making it while Indian Women’s Hockey team captain not making due to disciplinary issues besides the usual contingent size of athletes and coterie of politicos which makes beeline to sports extravaganza. While I am not taking any credit from India’s “Iron Ladies” and they need to be applauded for their exemplary efforts. They have achieved and reached where they have due to their sheer brilliance, perseverance & commitment with little or no international exposure & world class coaches. However, we have short memories and after initial euphoria I have a feeling that no further improvement will be made in infrastructure & facilities.

India has participated in all Olympics from 1920 onward with their first one being in 1900 in Paris. During this course of years India was phenomenal in Hockey but we lost our position once the sports became popular with European countries. India’s 1^st individual Gold came with Abhinav Bindra almost a century later. He was “ funded” by his family and trained mostly abroad to compete at the world stage. This demonstrates that India does not lack talent... When Abhinav or Sakshi or Sindhu can do it then what stops us?. Does this mean India can’t win medals because we don’t have talent or is it our mindset or infrastructure? Many questions in mind we all have and I have been watching the frustration towards the beginning of Rio Olympics with India not performing well and towards the end the excitement followed by sheer pride when we had Sindhu / Karmakar / Sakshi Malik  doing well. We. also witnessed the famous Shobha De tweet followed by massive trolling

Let’s look at Great Britain which was almost wiped out from medals tally in 2004 but bounced back to become 2^nd highest Gold medals tally in Beijing and in 2016 had 22 + medals which is commendable. What is GB doing which is different from India? Let’s dig a bit deeper and examine this case in detail. Great Britain post debacle has 4 times doubled the budget from GBP 71 M (2004) to GBP 300M (2016) and at an average for every medal they win they invest GBP 5.5 M. This is investment is made on 18 M people who fall into age group of 15-35 years. Whereas, if we look at India the budgets have fallen and they are presently at Rs 3,000 Cr and unlike Great Britain we have 400 M people in age bracket of 15-35 Years

In the recent news Indonesia has announced that they will invest in sports in which they have a higher potential to win a medal – Badminton, Table Tennis etc and not have a blanket approach to develop all sports. It’s a brilliant move as this would lead to funds being utilized in right sports to invest in players who can be groomed to take on larger stage. On contrary in India we see a flurry of politicians / state administrations / celebrities who want to recognize our medal winners post facto to get their moment of glory. Where were the same people / associations when the same players did not have adequate sponsorship, sports facilities and had to fend for their own self? Its ironical that what ails in Indian sports which has produced so few individual stars whereas smaller countries size of Delhi population is producing world champions relentlessly?

Sharing a few perspectives which are purely my own before I get pulled into any controversy. It is best to put this caveat upfront

Institutionalize Corporate / Private Funding

It was heartening to see funding by corporate in small measures in this Olympics and this is where the focus has to be shifted. In USA the government does not have Olympics fund and entire funding comes from private investors / corporate and you can check their medals tally over many years. This will help in building better and world class infrastructure which will support budding sportspeople.

High Potential Identification framework

Just like in any institution it’s important that there is a framework which works across the country in identifying the best talent. I am of firm opinion that there is no dearth of talent in our country but our identification process and sheer callous attitude is leading to apathy which we are witnessing. In Rio Olympics there are many good examples of athletes who would have won us a medal if they had proper coaching / nutrition  and guidance at international platform e.g. Dipa Karmakar in Gymnastics, Lalita Babbar in Marathon, Dutee Chand in 100 m sprint. All these 3 names represent sports where no other Indian has reached the finals in Olympics and to think that Dutee Chand had no shoes till a few days before the contingent was to leave for Rio ( Thanks to Edelweiss who sponsored at last minute).

The role of Government & Sports Ministry

Many large developed economies do not have sports ministry but they have been able to produce exceptional results on consistent basis. E.g. USA does not have a sports ministry who look after sports affair in country. India’s current situation is that we have sports minister who have no knowledge of sports and they go with a contingent which is swelling with little or no contribution to sports.  Why can’t we outsource this to an agency to manage? While we may lament BCCI which runs cricket in India but just look at how they have been able to make it the world’s richest cricket body. We should seriously give it a thought and make systematic changes rather than knee jerk reaction which will not have long term impact. We need to have a larger canvas and look beyond forests & trees.

Long Term Sustainable Strategy

Countries have their Tokyo 2020 plan already prepared and ready for execution. We have to think long term and plan for 2020 vision. We witness a mad frenzy just 4-8 weeks before the contingent has to leave for games with many controversies around – Selection, apathy of finances, Drugs, nepotism etc which leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. This can be avoided with having a structure around selection and make it run like a well oiled machinery. We can avoid controversies surrounding selection of rape accused hockey player vs. women’s hockey team captain who was sacked as she got married. This is a disaster and there is no merit in these instances which ethically wrong. What we need is the “Big Picture “and a single unified body which oversees the this business of sports and provide direction as well as remove road blocks

Funnel Investment in events in which we have higher probability to win

According to Statistics ,Olympics gold medal events at Beijing, China in 2008, India only represented 34.44% of the events {didn't take Athletics and Swimming into account, which is 25%, because we are unable to get any significant success in any recent local events like CWG 2010, Asian Games etc. counting them won’t give us the clearer picture}.  Having a look at all these events, we can clearly witness that nearly 25% of them are Athletics and Swimming. But who is winning in athletics? US, Russia and several African countries and Swimming event are dominated by developed world only. But they have got so many events that we just have to focus on a very few of them and I think we might have a chance to score. If Zimbabwe can cough up medals in swimming then we can too.

Meanwhile we are sending very few people for all events and several of the categories remain unrepresented which is exactly the reason why China is doing well in Olympics because they are using what they have in abundant, People! Hence we have increase the number of participants in each and every event and at least bring the contestant to the qualifiers. This will help them to increase their foreign exposure. Statistically, US have won 12 gold medals in swimming alone, China have won 11 Gold Medals in Gymnastics alone. We can at least match those numbers in Wrestling, Boxing, Shooting and Weight Lifting combined.

For events like Canoeing and Rowing which has got 16 and 14 events, respectively, We definitely have a chance here. But we have to consider rethinking our strategy and get acquainted to the international setup.  May be I am exaggerating on the following but I think: If we can do it during Snake boat race in Kerala during Onam then Gold in Canoeing is not a distant dream

Conclusion

I leave this with a thought that India does not lack talent and there are many examples as highlighted above as well as many which could not be mentioned here. What India requires is collective wisdom to execute a well crafted plan with right intent and governance. If the purpose is clear then we can move any elephant.

While I have given my perspective but I am sure you have yours and you can leave your comments