Why India did badly at the Rio Games

Before wrestler Sakshi Malik opened our account on Day 12 of the 2016 Summer Olympics at Rio de Janeiro with a bronze, India looked set for another dry run at the Games in a grim throwback to the time between Moscow 1980 when we got a hockey gold and Atlanta 1996 when Leander Paes got us a bronze—our medal-less years. And despite the cheer brought on by the achievements of Malik and our “silver princess” shuttler PV Sindhu and the sterling performance of gymnast Dipa Karmakar, we stand 64^th among 75 medal-winning countries.

Just compare swimmer Michael Phelps with his collection of 23 shining diskettes with India’s overall take-home— since the start of the last millennium—of eight hockey and Abhinav Bindra’s one individual golds. Our population of 1.25 billion was overjoyed at sending a contingent of 118 to the Brazilian capital but we participated in only 15 sports!

Is it time to introspect? What are the reasons behind India’s catastrophic performance in the Olympics? And how can we improve our medals tally in Tokyo 2020? The VON Team presents a vox populi based on these painful queries.

Ruchika Nadkar, former state badminton champion (Madhya Pradesh); daughter presently state champion

A common question that crops up in every Indian’s mind, especially those from the non-sporting community, is that why, in a population of one billion people, there is a scarcity of medals for India. Do we lack talent? No. But winning at the international stage—it’s easier said than done. I won’t say our players lag behind their counterparts from any other country. I feel that given our meager facilities and odd conditions, they are amongst the bravest lot. Our players work in adverse circumstances, travel in pathetic environments and play matches despite all adversities.

The Indian player is always apprehensive about his future and struggles to get a decent job. Sports requires immense emotional, physical, intellectual, financial and psychological strength and a player needs to find a perfect balance of all of these, but in India, this balance is frequently challenged, which results in decline of the person’s performance level.

Many a time, the player gets embroiled in unwanted politics of federations, associations or the government. This hampers the growth of a player.

The player also has to struggle with family pressures, as sports takes a back seat when it comes to career. In fact, children are discouraged to take it up as a career. Also, some parents expect quick results from a child as they are investing a huge amount of time and money.

We have talent hidden in every part of the country. We just need an eye to capture it and a hand to nurture it. That talent is a dire necessity.

Devendra Shukla, research head, Doordarshan News

In my view, the most appropriate reason for India’s poor performance in Rio is the unprofessionalism of our policymakers. Someone who knows nothing about sports is the sports minister of the country and another, who is a throughbred politician and not much else, is president of the wrestling federation! In no medal-winning country has such a thing taken place!

Once again, it’s not a question of 2020 or even 2050 when it comes to seeing improvement on the ground. Making champions is a continuous process of putting in place world-class infrastructure and eradicating the scourge of politics in sports. Give a chance to real sportsmen and women to lead administrations. And, most important, change your attitude. Everyone wants medals in the Olympics but they want their own children to be only a doctor or an engineer. How else will you get Kidambi Srikanths? Try to make champions from your own homes.

Ujwal Kumar Singh, journalist at CNN-News 18

2016 is following 2012, our best year. Naturally expectations are much higher, and disappointments the more bitter. Government spending has not increased in the meantime—many athletes train on their own on sponsors’ money. Can’t expect much without giving facilities. Take the case of Dipa Karmakar. She made it here completely on her own steam. There is no gymnastics federation in India. That’s shocking.

I also feel mental strength is an issue with many athletes. A few, for instance, came to the final hurdle but faltered then. Deepika Kumari and Jitu Rai didn’t do justice to their talent. So a mental conditioning camp must be set up alongside sports-specific training programs. Also, can we expect medals if athletes like Narsingh Yadav are made to run to court and Nada?

How to improve from here? Get money, put the infrastructure in the place. Our athletes have actually over-achieved considering the support given to them. And, yes, the Olympics must be made a priority.

Susnata Karmakar, a research student at IISER

There is a dire lack of facilities and funding. No one would want to be a weightlifter or a cyclist. A cricketer gets paid a lot more.

I do not think we can accomplish much improvement by 2020. When budgets for education and health are being curtailed, one cannot expect more money being invested in sports.

Anish Anand, sports journalist at Cricking.com

I wouldn’t go on to call it catastrophic performance by the Olympians. They tried their best and some of them missed medals by very fine margins. The expectation was around 6-7 medals but it looks like we’ll miss that target. Overall, of course, we are lagging—be it in training methods, infrastructure or funding. Unless and until we give the best to our athletes, we shouldn’t expect golds.

Vinayakk Mohanarangan, sports journalist at ScoopWhoop

For Tokyo 2020, the preparations have to start by now. The government has to lay out a full-fledged plan to improve the sporting standards. Organizations like Olympics Gold Quest are doing good but to raise the bar in terms of sporting standards, the government has to play a more active role. We can take cues from countries like Cuba. It is difficult to pinpoint the exact reasons for an event as big as the Olympics but you need not look farther than the mess that the organizers have made in Rio, starting with the sports minister. While it does not have a direct co-relation to India’s medal tally, it is indicative of the apathy of India’s administrators towards sport.

The athletes, on the other hand, have given it their all. There is no doubting that they are doing the best they can do, but their best is simply not good enough. The blame for that lies on the shoulders of the men running the sport

Where do we go from here? We always think of the next Olympics when the current event is on. Not good at Athens, what can we do in Beijing? Not good at Rio, what can we do in Tokyo? The need of the hour is to spot talent at a much younger age and target the 2024 Games.

For short-term results, a lot more corporate involvement is needed. And the sooner the Olympic sports are privatized, the better it is for athletes. You can already see the effects of badminton of having a league of its own.

Anil Karam, businessman, Manipur

The reasons usually cited—such as lack of sports infrastructure, too much political interference, absence of sporting culture, genetics, and economic impoverishment—might be among many reasons why India is failing time and again, but I have a different take on this. It is the mindsets of the people at large, the way we treat our sport stars in India. Sportsman are treated like celebrities in all the sporting countries while in India, barring a few cricketers, they are treated likemadari (who entertain people on the streets for money). Rich and healthy Indians have everything on their minds except sports and our country is left with poor, underfed and undertrained, but talented and inspired athletes. Just imagine how low the self-esteem of our sportsmen and women are when competing with their counterparts from other parts of the world.

Nitin Mathur, chartered accountant

The big reason for Indians not doing well in the Olympics is our skepticism about sports as a career. We give 70 percent importance to academics and, maybe, 30 percent importance to sports. Even I would be apprehensive about my kid’s future if they take up sports as a career option. There is no fall-back option. The school where I studied (Sardar Patel Vidyalaya) produced top cricketers including Ajay Jadeja, but even there sports types were scoffed at when they took a drop of a year to play Under-18.

Tajamul Showket, consultant

Why did we fail in Rio? The foremost reason would be no professional approach towards preparing players for a competition of international level. The causes are many; however, I would like mention the obvious ones: We do not encourage athletes who come from humble backgrounds. Such athletes should be provided all the professional help and also we must ensure that their family obligations do not hamper their training. In 2012 Nisha Rani who won the silver medal at the 2008 South Asian Championship sold her bow (which was a gift from her coach) so that she could feed her family. Budia Singh, a child prodigy and long distance runner from Orissa, belongs to a poor family. No proper grooming was given and the state government just let his talent rot. There are many such examples where athletes gave up on their passion so that they could get a job that pays regularly. Their talent needed to be groomed and that required State’s attention and finances, which either came too late or were so meager that they could only help them become average players.

We should also make other sports as lucrative as cricket. Otherwise, rather than improving our performances at the international level, we may end up coming back with ZERO medals. Look at what happened to hockey, which we ruled for decades.

How can we improve our tally in Tokyo 2020? Look for talent in the remotest parts of the country. Groom them. Provide the best facilities (stadiums, training, equipment etc). Look into their background and help them in boosting their morale. Bring in thorough professionals, even if it means hiring foreign coaches. And please, let us not send our ministers, MPs, MLAs to these events to encourage these athletes. We should send former players who understand what it means to be at an international competition and feel the pain of the athlete when he/she loses. And please, spare cricketers from going to these games at the government’s expense. They are nothing more than businessmen now. Their team spirit and professionalism has gone to the dogs.

Bishwajeet Dutt, businessman

If we analyse our failure at the Olympics, two main reasons emerge: lack of economic resources and lack of effective targeting.

More economic muscle means more money spent on infrastructure, personnel and supporting organizations. A wealthy country with high standards of living is also more likely to have sports as a part of schooling. The way in which India was priced out of hockey—its lone bright spot in the Olympics for decades—after the switch from grass to AstroTurf shows how important economic resources are.

The size of the effective participating population—how widely opportunity is distributed amidst the overall population—is also critical. The most important determinant of this is public information about the Olympics, what the event means, the number of athletic opportunities and so on. Better informed—and better connected via road networks—populations translate to larger effective participating populations and better performance at the Olympics

Where to go from here? Start the process of loosening the government’s grip on sport. After all, if there is one thing Indian cricket’s much-maligned overlords have shown, it’s that private bodies can use the market to work through the barriers facing Indians in sporting endeavors. Professional coaching. Professional training institutions in the heartlands. Continuously creating sporting events—central and state. These are things that could help.

Rajesh Kumar, senior marketing professional

It was a moment to rejoice as India has opened its Olympics medal account with a bronze by Sakshi Malik in 58kg wrestling on Raksha Bandhan. But the drought in medals is nothing new. Just because our country is participating in the Olympics does not mean we should expect medals galore. Not that we have a great precedent. Whatever we have got in various international sports events including the Olympics has been possible more due to individual effort rather than governmental initiative. In a country like ours, winning medals at various sport events is a distant dream and rightly so because a considerable size of our population still struggles to make their ends meet. The Government of India can’t ignore its primary responsibility of catering to our food security requirements. Sports can’t help but take a back seat.

So we can look at improving our medals tally in Tokyo 2020 only after the government has fed 100% of its population and catered to our basic needs of roti, kapda aur makaan. Only after this, can we think of investing in sports and building sporting infrastructure. Then again, if winter comes, can spring be far behind!

Kumar Ritwik, student, National Law University, Delhi

Waking up to the good news that Sakshi Malik has won India its first medal surely cannot be reason enough for us to be proud of our contingent’s performance. Though we are all extremely proud of her achievement we should also take a step back and assess how disastrous our campaign has been this time round (when you compare it with the last three-four Olympics).

A major reason why we have never really been able to perform up to our real potential is because of poor grants that are available to the sports ministry—which are then diverted to various federations and bodies. In order for us to be able to achieve better results, the focus should be on investing more in our athletes for various facilities and on cultivating a healthier environment.

Another important reason for failure has been the fact that the preparations of athletes has suffered because of the clashes between different entities claiming to be the legitimate holders/authorities over that specific sport; which has then turned the situation pretty ugly to the extent that the entire process has gone haywire. Athletes attending different trials for the event, politics over selections and turf wars have had a lot to do with why we were largely disappointed in Rio.

I am hopeful that the government will allocate more funds to sports in case our priority is to cultivate a healthy sporting environment along with academic excellence for students and make a genuine attempt towards resolving the power struggle between these bodies and federations. However, our focus should not be only on the Sindhus, Yogeshwars, Sakshis, Dipas and Bindras but also on the Nehwals, Deepikas, Souravs and Anirbans of Rio.

Priyansh Verma, student, BTech, SRM University

It’s unfortunate that India has failed to perform satisfactorily in Rio. Reason? An average Indian dreams of becoming an academic scholar and wishes to pursue his/her career in field of engineering, medical, law, business, etc. We perceive things within boundaries. Apart from that, we lack in meeting the basic requirements for making India a major sporting nation.

The sports ministry of the Indian government spent a mere 1500 crores in 2015-16 and got a marginal hike of approx. 50 crore in 2016-17 which is far less compared to the expenditure on education at nearly 70k crore. The sports sector has never been sufficiently encouraged in India. So it’s not surprising that out of 42 disciplines, our 118 Indian athletes registered in only 15.

It will be unwise to expect Indians to perform extremely well till the time we don’t raise our expenditure on sports. We need to proliferate and engender the sporting spirit within the youth. The government should start new schemes and programs related to sports. They will improve the condition of already existing schemes and install checks and balances.

Last but not the least, in order to win a lot of medals at the Olympics, we need to make India a highly prosperous country. Of course, we all know that where there is a will, there is a way.

Vikas Kathuria, PhD researcher

Lack of proper training and resources, as well as too much performance pressure, did us in at Rio. For Tokyo, we must invest in world-class facilities and coaches by demonstrating that being a sportsman can be a stand-alone career. Only then we can we achieve a measure of success in 2020.

Pankaj Yadav, student

Unlike any other activity, sports requires a lot of investment. In order to see the desired result, a sportsperson needs a good diet. In India we start harassing a person if we see that he is only playing, eating and sleeping. Instead of observing his hard work and admiring him, we call him Kumbhkaran.

The politicians whom we elect are also eating up our money. For example, an MP of Haryana went to Rio just in order to motivate the players. Wow! I read somewhere that he wasted 1 crore rupees on the trip. It would have been better if he had donated that amount to some sports institute. Once an event is over, apart from the winners, we forget the rest of our sportsmen. Frankly, no one in this generation knew about Milkha Singh before Farhan Akhtar bought him to our notice. What happened to Budhia we all know and to encourage footballers we needed John Abraham because just Baichung Bhutia was not enough. Politics within the sports community. I almost cried when I heard about Narsingh Yadav. He got a direct ticket to Rio and worked damn hard but became a victim of conspiracy. I mean we are blaming him because someone added something in his diet while he was working hard in the stadium. Is it not the responsibility of government? If we can resolve these issues we will surely improve our score at the next Olympics.

Devendra Tiwari, fellow, dissemination and social diffusion, National Innovation Foundation

The biggest reason behind the poor performance of the country is that we not only lack facilities, but also awareness about many sports. Leave alone ordinary schools, even reputed schools offer facilities only in cricket, football, swimming and tennis. There are so many sports about which our youngsters don’t even know. This is the reason why sports culture has not taken root in India and we are left red-faced in events like the Olympics.

To improve our performance we need to work at the ground level. We need to teach students about Olympics and their importance as part of the school syllabus. We also need to take sports out of the ambit of a ministry and constitute a separate sports authority, which should be run by noted players and professionals. This authority should organize competitions from school to national level, offer all required facilities and create a conducive atmosphere for sports.

—With inputs from Anil Shakya, Lembi Kh, Shailaja Paramathma,
Usha Rani Das, Meha Mathur, Sucheta Dasgupta and Prabir Biswas

Lead Photo: UNI