Snap out of the big fat Greek depression, cut the medal claptrap

Over the century leading up to Athens 2004, India won no more than 15 Olympic medals, 11 of these in hockey. So while competing at Olympics, we must always maintain perspective.

Athletes competing at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens | Pixabay

It may not be the most convincing point to make this morning but this is by no means our worst Olympics ever. It is, actually, one of our better ones in the past 40 years, since the last time we won a genuine gold was Tokyo 1964.

Before we allow ourselves to be driven into deep depression, we have to remember that in the past hundred years, we have won no more than 15 Olympic medals, 11 of these in hockey. So while competing at that level, we must always be conscious of where we are coming from.

Nor is it our most embarrassing outing ever in spite of the shame of doping. I have been unfortunate enough to have witnessed what I believe was our worst outing ever, the 1990 Beijing Asiad, where we won only the kabaddi gold and where an Indian contingent dog-tag was the object of derision and amusement all over Beijing.

Not only were we beaten in every discipline even at the Asian level, we also grabbed daily headlines in the local media for having brought along two Indian Olympic Associations. The typically old Indian sports story: two fighting factions, one led by Chennai tycoon Sivanthi Adithyan, the other by Vidya Charan Shukla.

Such is the paucity of talent in our country that it takes the same individual, the ever-so pompous Mr Shukla to achieve all kinds of feats, from imposing censorship during Emergency and jailing pro-RSS/BJP journalists to heading a rebel IOA in 1990 to becoming the most unsuccessful defector in our history (to the BJP, where else, on the eve of the last elections).

Then, in the middle of that shameful Asiad, one faction slipped in invites for a press conference under the doors of the Indian journalists’ hotel rooms, two crisp hundred-dollar notes neatly folded in the envelope.

The next day, Shukla actually held a press conference accusing his rival of having done this, and ruing the falling standards of ethics in Indian sport which were now even afflicting the media.

Fortunately, we have seen nothing of that sort at Athens as yet. We also have our best medal ever in an event other than hockey. Our archers and shooters have recorded their best rankings ever. Some of the younger boxers show promise.

But it is obviously not good enough. So what do we do to break out of this also-ran trap? Here are some ideas.

Cut the medal claptrap

In all the 38 Olympic sports put together, do we have even a hundred Indians who could figure among the top 20 in their respective disciplines? How can we then be so fixated on medals?

We have to plan to generally improve our rankings over the next two Olympics. It is only when we have at least a hundred Indians who can be in the top-ten rankings consistently that five to ten of them will have a chance of bringing back a medal.

Until such overall improvement takes place, only a prodigy like Rathore will have the chance of winning a medal, and we should be satisfied with that.

The medal trap is harmful for several reasons. One, it makes sure that to be rewarded, an athlete must win a medal. It does not matter if he/she improved India’s rankings by ten places.

In all these disciplines, rewards come from the government, and for that you need a medal. This discourages all excellence and improvement from, say, level 30 to 10 without which you cannot even get in the medal league.

Our system must learn to reward better performance at all levels. Only then will our sportspeople have the patience and encouragement to bridge the gap between mediocrity and medals.

Privatise, privatise, privatise

Sports Minister Sunil Dutt demands a budget of Rs 10, 000 crore if Indian sport has to get somewhere. He would be better off making an application to Comrade Surjeet to get it added to the CMP.

The last thing Indian sport needs is more government. Look at it like this. What would be the face of Indian cricket if John Wright had to report to some Joint Secretary (Cricket) in Dutt’s ministry? So the one area where the government must disinvest is sports.

Government officials (particularly IAS/IPS) should be barred from holding positions in sports associations. Wind up the Sports Ministry, or replace it with a Stadium Authority of India.

Let other sports synergise with cricket or at least learn from it to collect sponsorships, raise their own revenues. It’s not easy, but the only way forward.

Otherwise, cricket will keep looking like the IT sector of Indian sport and the rest of the games like sick PSUs.

Build rewards in ‘peacetime’

This flows from the previous point. Have you ever wondered why somebody like Anju, one of our greatest athletes ever, can’t even get Reebok or Adidas to choose her as their brand ambassador?

She has performance and medals, style, looks and personality to give most Indian supermodels a complex. Yet, somebody has to get a small sponsorship from a real-estate developer in Dubai merely to pay for her training.

In a Walk the Talk, she told me that could be because athletes like her get so little TV time. Only the big international meets are covered and a jumper or a sprinter figures on the screen only for a few moments so how do advertisers get their value for money? It is for sports entrepreneurs to change that.

Why does the same not apply to Carl Lewis and Gail Devers? Raise that question with Suresh Kalmadi, the athletics boss in India for ages. What have he and his association done to build such peacetime (when sporting events are not on) incomes for his stars?

Where are the sponsorships, brand ambassadorships? If a sportsperson gets only one crack at rewards every four years, it is too little incentive to compete at Olympic levels.

Build a real domestic circuit

To begin with, only those who win medals get any real rewards and they are very very few. All the others see a mere foreign trip to compete in an event as a great incentive. We must build incomes and rewards for them at home as well.

This even applies to hockey. Our domestic leagues are inconsequential. Our national games are a mere sarkari event with no hype or excitement which no one comes to watch.

If we can build genuine domestic leagues and create real competition amongst states and clubs, not only will we create incomes for more sportsmen, we will also discover more talent.

And such competition will further improve standards. But for that to happen, you have to work on our first point. Disinvest from sports management, privatise and then allow genuine sports entrepreneurship to flourish.

Call out the Army

Finally, if nothing works, as we do in other impossible situations, call out the Army.

As Rathore, the boxers and many others underline to you, only that one institution has the organisation and the discipline to produce excellence. So disband the IOA and hand it over to the Army.

The risk, of course, is that the same freebies and junkets may end up corrupting the poor faujis as well.

This is a small list of ideas. I am sure many of you, reeling, like me, under the pain and humiliation of Athens will have many more. Certainly, we take our sports more seriously than our officials.