Ajinkya Savant

As the euphoria of the sporting world slowly fades away, India as a nation should bathe in immense joy of its athletes excelling at the recently concluded edition of Commonwealth Games held at Gold Coast, Australia. In terms of total medals won, India stands at a thumping 4th position with a tally of 66 medals in various sports and disciplines. The vision of numerous athletes from the Indian contingent seemed fulfilled with the podium finish and the Indian national anthem playing along with tears of happiness rolling down their faces.

Held every 4 years, this event is a sort of parallel Olympic event for all nations that had an English godfather or put simply; were ruled by the British Empire. India has been a consistent top contender for commonwealth games in the past editions of the event (2010, 2014, 2018), but there is a very alarming statistic that should really make us ponder upon the path we’re headed towards as a nation.

While we inch closer towards the dawn of the next Olympic Games in 2020, we could only wonder how our top athletes would perform at a global platform with all countries participating. Would our commonwealth results transcend into the Olympics and bring us laurels? Or would the competition be so gutting that our nation will bleed out and be forced to its knees?

Looking at the past trends, India always seems to be rather domineering in the commonwealth games but has sheepish results in the Olympics. To put it into perspective, in the 2006 Commonwealth games – India won 50 medals in total. Two years later at the 2008 Olympics, we won 3 medals in total. In the 2010 Commonwealth games – India won 101 medals. In the 2012 Olympics, we won 6 medals in total. In the 2014 Commonwealth games – India won 64 medals. In the 2016 Olympics, we won 2 medals.

To simply state it in words our performance is rather disappointing at the Olympics for a country that is the second most populated in the entire world. We have the lowest medal conversion rates for population per country. Our closest neighbour, China beats us in population by just a bit, but is leaps and bounds ahead of us in medals won at the Olympics, usually competing with the USA for the top spot.

Clearly, something is not right with the way our approach towards sports seems to be. As a nation, known to be the next superpower of the world, it definitely wouldn’t hurt to be known as a sporting powerhouse of the world too. As the saying goes, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”, it is absolutely imperative to focus more on the development of sports and sporting facilities throughout the nation as sports keeps the mind fresh, body healthy and people lively. Sports promote a healthy lifestyle, which is something every individual should aspire for, because running or exercising may seem hard, but dying slowly from obesity and heart problems is definitely much harder.

For a country approaching the 1.4 billion mark in population, 2 medals at the Olympic games is just shameful. There are numerous factors that seem to be deterrent to the sporting world in our country:-

1. Sports are mostly considered a leisure activity and not as a viable career option.

With the growing economy and shortage of work for skilled and unskilled individuals, which Indian parents do you think would encourage their children to take a career as dubious as sports and deviate them from the normal job market? Only a fraction of the entire population. This itself eliminates the possibility of numerous athletes from ever honing their talents and practicing their skills. Sports is known to benefit athletes in aspects like team work, quick thinking, risk taking, hand eye coordination, spatial awareness, body awareness, balance, mental strength, strong willpower, desire to succeed, happiness levels and also elevates emotions among other things, but it all gets sidelined over the possibility of there being a ‘safer’ alternative of education and work. Could you imagine Cricket without Sachin Tendulkar? What if he had not dropped out of school to pursue cricket full time? Whom would the current cricketers worship?

2. Lack of opportunities and support to athletes in our country.

This starts from the grass-root level. With India being a developing country and most of the sports being played globally, quality equipment, training facilities, coaching and diet seem like a burden for the budding athletes who have limited finances. Firstly, all quality equipment are imported so it is automatically expensive. Maintaining a diet for sports is also an extensive task. Looking out for good training facilities and coaches are also financially straining for parents who are the primary financers of young athletes.

3. Identification and nurturing of talent.

Identification of a child’s talent at a young age for sports is mostly up to the parents in India. China has sports scouring agents that visit schools across the country looking for small kids with certain body types for different sports. They identify certain body types for particular sports and select kids based on this. So instead of school, these kids are sent to training facilities for the particular sport where they spend the next few years of their lives training for a sport. The expenses are borne by the country. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say the country is building an army of athletes to fight sports battles.

Now picture something like this happening in India. With the diversity we have in our gene pools and our inherent hardworking attitude, we’d be blessed with champion athletes in every discipline. It wouldn’t be long until we saw India being the best country at the Olympics, because lord knows it, we have the guns but what we lack is the gunpowder.

4. Facilities, coaching and mental conditioning.

No sport can be played competitively without the right facilities and coaches. India does have a good infrastructure in some sports at a few locations and the others are definitely catching up, but this pace needs to be sped up if we’re expecting any realistic results in the near future. It is unfair if Indians are asked to train in basic facilities and asked to win against players from countries who have the best of facilities and most specialized training plans. It is the equivalent of asking a tea seller to become the Prime Minister of a country. I’m not saying that it cannot be done, but it is simply a very long shot.

Any good coach will be an advocate of how important mental training is along with physical and technical training for a sport, because once you’re in the game, it is all about the attitude you carry with yourself that makes the difference. You may be the most talented and prepared guy in the arena, but if you walk inside doubting yourself and your ability to perform, you are bound to lose. If you think like a winner, you end up  being the winner, it’s that easy. But Indians take a back seat in the mental conditioning of players. There isn’t enough focus given to the mentality of players and how to improve physical performance through mental stimulus. This is a very important aspect to be focused on for any professional player.

5. Just practices and fairness.

There are numerous occasions when the public is exposed to how sports are riddled with malpractice. Corruption in selection, favoritism, bias, bribery, political influences, regional influences are just a few of the evils that plague our sporting world. As long as these evils persist, the real stars will be in the shadows of the better connected or richer or favored athletes. This in turn only creates a negative atmosphere among the existing athletes and a poor entry point for any new athletes looking to take up the sport. While this not only crushes the life’s work of one individual athlete who was sidelined due to malpractice, it also breathes in demotivation amongst existing athletes to work hard, out of sheer fear of someone more influential being preferred over them. This in turn lowers the level of the sport in the country. A rather vicious cycle which we’re yet to tackle and eliminate.

Since our country is a democracy, we believe in the power of the government. Our elected representatives are a reflection of our beliefs and ideas. For our sporting athletes to be the best, we need all the support the government can give us. All the concerned organizations need to come up with a holistic plan targeting certain major sporting events and expecting results by providing the best of in house facilities. As a developing nation, the only way is forward, and it is up to us to use the right catalysts to speed up the journey.

If there is ever a will, the way is found.

Ajinkya Savant, Caranzalem, Goa

Ajinkya Savant is a Marketing graduate from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS), Mumbai who is currently pursuing sports professionally. In his free time, he can be spotted at eateries or on mountains, trekking. He also takes time out to write and sketch occasionally. (views expressed are his own)