Olympic aspirations

Start from basics to develop a sporting culture in the country

The Olympic Games at Tokyo have led to unusual levels of enthusiasm in India, which has been placed higher on the medals table than ever before. The country has never before won as many as seven medals; its previous best was six at London 2012. On this occasion, one of those medals was also an individual gold — India last bagged a gold medal when Abhinav Bindra won in the 10-metre air rifle category at Beijing 2008. It was also India’s first individual track and field medal in over a century. There were also disappointments: The shooting contingent, which had hoped to win several medals given their performance at the world championship and their various individual rankings, did not feature in the table finally; the women’s hockey team came fourth after a stirring comeback, and golfer Aditi Ashok, ranked 200th in the world, nevertheless came close to medalling in her category. It is easy to see how India could have won even more medals than it did; and to sense that the broad trajectory for Indian Olympic sports is upward and not stagnant. This partly explains the enthusiastic reaction back home to the unprecedented tally. The question is: How can this enthusiasm be turned into sustained improvement?

There is no doubt that the government as well as the public sector undertakings (PSUs) have played a critical role in improving India’s performance over the years. Most of the Olympics participants are employed and nurtured by PSUs. The private sector has also played an important role. The lone gold medal winner, Neeraj Chopra was supported by the Union government’s Target Olympic Podium scheme as well as by private sponsor JSW. In fact, more companies should follow the Tatas who have been involved in developing a sporting culture in the country. For example, Dorab Tata, who set up Tata Steel and Tata Power, was a key figure in organising and financing India’s participation in the Olympics in 1920.
 

This year, India started from a much lower base than, say, China, which came close to dethroning the United States at the top of the medal tally. China has developed an Olympics-focused sporting programme that consumes an enormous amount of resources. Spending on sports, by the government’s projections, will reach 4.3 per cent of the Chinese economy in 2025, up from 2.5 per cent in 2015. A comparable figure for India in sports, excluding cricket, would be much smaller. Thus, India’s path to sporting excellence will have to be its own. It cannot import athletic talent, as Britain and other European countries do; it cannot rely on a superb and well-endowed high school and college athletics system, as the United States does; and it cannot throw resources at the problem, as China has. The first step must be to inculcate a sporting temperament in those currently in school. A focus on sporting excellence should be considered normal for a school student, not merely a distraction from the real work of academics. A lightweight and efficient system to identify individuals with potential in certain sports should be created, alongside a series of centres of excellence for sports from athletics to swimming to which those individuals can then be sent. In short, the country has to build a sporting culture which can provide a sustainable and scalable mechanism to meet India’s Olympic aspirations.