Commonwealth Games 2022: Sindhu to Chanu, a look at India's medal hopes

Indian athletes vouch for ability of Commonwealth Games to change lives, even as its legacy struggles to find relevance

“The first medal is always a special one,” she says, “Peo­ple remember. And even if they don’t, I do. And evidently, you do too.” With that final sentence N Soniya Cha­nu laughs heartily. The re­c­ords prove this. On Oct­ober 4, 2010, (a date she rem­em­bers clearly) at the Jawa­har­lal Nehru Stadium Soniya won silver in the 48kg weigh­t­lifting event. Through purely scheduling luck, she bec­ame the first Indian to win a medal at their home Games.

“It would be presumptuous of me to say that my medal changed weightlifting in my state,” Soniya humbly says, “but it changed my life.” In 1999, financial pressure forced Soniya to shift to Lucknow, where her coach offered to train and house her, while also getting her a job with the police. She was grateful to the state, but also realised that she’d never really get the recognition she de­served. “I wasn’t from there you see,” she says. That med­al though changed things. Within days, she received an out-of-turn promotion and was even awarded some money by her home state.

“After having spent years not being recognised here or there, for once, people everywhere wanted to claim me,” she laughs. She won the Nationals four months later, and bagged gold at the Commonwealth Championships in Cape Town almost a year to the day after her Delhi silver. Delhi 2010 was, in many ways, the pinnacle of her career, but its effects weren’t just restricted to her.

“Manipur always had a history of great weigh­t­lifters,” Laishangbam Anita Chanu says. A weightlifting coach, Anita has produced some of India’s most successful female lifters over the past decade. “Kunjarini is still one of the greatest lifters this country has seen, but yes there was a loss of public image, interest and even government support before the Commonwealth Games.”

Six women followed Soniya’s silver in Delhi — four were lifters born and trained in Manipur. Govern­ment rewards, the promise of jobs, a brief surge of money at the grassroots followed. Weightlifting went mainstream. Anita remembers all the girls watching Soniya’s competition on a small TV that October over a decade ago. “There would have been many of them who were ins­pired by that first day medal, I’m sure,” she says. One of them, then a diminutive 16-year-old, went on to win India’s first medal (silver) at the Tokyo Oly­m­pics last year. Unsurprisingly, Mirabai Chanu’s was also won on the first day of the Games.

What worth legacy

Any talk of the 2010 Com­monwealth Games is invariably followed by talk of misuse of funds, corruption and wasting public money for limited use infrastructure. Even the Commonwealth Games Value Framework Re­port produced for the Commonwealth Games Fed­er­ation (CGF), excludes Del­hi from its study “because the available evidence on costs and benefits is less complete”.

This lack of data and clear analysis is covered by athlete testimonies, with a number of them, like Soniya, citing the Games as either the first step or the peak of their careers. Geeta Phogat’s gold was immortalised in celluloid. The Indian hockey team’s silver ended up in a massive overhaul and revamp of structures. One way or another, the Games had caused a rethink. Speaking to the BBC in the aftermath of the Indian women’s victory in the 4x400m relay in 2010, Sebastian Coe (president of World Athletics) said this could be the moment that could “potentially change the course of athletics in Asia”. It was his way of justifying holding the Games in a developing country. “To build a truly global capacity in sport,” Coe said, “you have to take it round the world, out of your own backyard. That means taking risks and facing challenges, but it has to be done.”

And yet in the years that followed it hasn’t been done. The two editions since Delhi have been held in Glasgow and the Gold Coast. This year’s edition (in Birmingham after Durban pulled out) will be followed by Victoria, Australia.

While the value report says that hosting the event boosted GDP in the host city/region by £0.8 billion–£1.2 billion, hosts have been tougher and tougher to find. It took until earlier this year to finalise the next venue, with few cities committing to hosting the Games, more so in a post-pandemic world.

This year’s Games was backed by £778 million of public funding, £594 million of which came from the UK’s central government. The event is the first significant investment made by the country since the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games — the legacy of which is the source of serious debate on its decade anniversary.

Birmingham 2022’s exclusion of shooting (one of India’s best medal events) from its schedule immediately sparked a debate about the relevance of the Games in the modern world. Historians, academics and even sports administrators (chief among them, the then president of the Indian Olympic Association, Narinder Batra) derided the Games as an archaic colonial hangover. The threat of a boycott loomed large — large enough for the organisers to agree to a separate Commonwealth shooting competition to be staged in Delhi, the results of which would be mentioned in the Games’ tally; the idea fell through because of Covid-19.

The 2018 Gold Coast edition saw a large-scale agitation during the opening ceremony, indigenous protesters labelling the Games the Stolenwealth Games — a means of sports washing centuries of oppression. While there was no doubt about the sporting spectacle of the event, questions abound over the Games’ future.

And while a revamp is in order — more so in the aftermath of mass movements recognising past injustices — in the short term any cancellation would affect the athletes (as usual), first up. “I won’t lie, the Olympics are a matter of timing, luck, and many more high-level things,” Soniya says. “It is not easy to get a medal there. And medals, frankly, result in jobs.”

INDIA’s MEDAL HOPES

P V Sindhu (badminton): Despite her many glorious achievements, astonishingly enough, Sindhu has never won a Commonwealth gold (she has one silver and one bronze), a fact she will be desperate to rectify. India’s flag bearer is also in a rich vein of form although the effects of a Covid-19 scare are yet unknown.

Nikhat Zareen (boxing): World champion, biryani fiend and Twitter legend, Zareen will make her debut at the Games in Birmingham. She goes into the event among the favourites, and has done so without having to bear the brunt of a trial after Mary Kom’s injury. If she can follow her World Champs gold with a medal here, she’d cement herself as the best Indian woman boxer around, bar one.

Mirabai Chanu (weightlifting): Chanu holds every Commonwealth Games record possible in the 48kg category at the Games and will hope to take an unprecedented third gold in the event. While nothing is guaranteed in elite sport, Chanu’s stiffest competition is, literally, herself. “Obviously I have the record in my thoughts, but we are also planning for the World Champs so might adjust accordingly,” she said.

India women’s cricket: Cricket may never be a part of the Olympic programme, but that is perhaps why the Commonwealth exists. The T20 format for women only makes its debut at the Games and it’s hard to look beyond Smriti Mandhana and co. when it comes to a medal.

Ravi Dahiya (wrestling): The lone man to make our list, and for good reason. Dahiya’s photograph adorns the halls of the Chhatrasal Stadium in Delhi. The Tokyo silver medallist won gold at the Asian Championships earlier this year, and seems to be in good nick. Wrestling is not part of the Durban programme (for now), so this may well be his one and only chance to win one at the Games.