Olympics 2016: The Indian Athletes deserve Better
- In Current Affairs
- 10:04 PM, Aug 24, 2016
- Aadit Kapadia
As we watch the Olympic Games unfold and see the Indian athletes give their absolute best against many athletes in the world, we are also seeing people who have started commenting about India isn’t ‘where it should be’ in Olympics and giving their own ridiculous reasons about it; which are far from the reality. Every four years when the Olympics games start, these debates start coming up. You also have seen some people go in to self-loathing bore fests blaming India’s ‘obsession with cricket’ earlier. This is not to suggest that the Indian athletes are getting the best possible facilities or that they are remotely getting benefits close to the cricket team. This is an attempt to put things into perspective when it comes to sports.
The United States of America probably has remained one of the most successful countries at the Olympic Games. Guess what the most popular sport in USA is: American Football. Is it featured in the Olympics? No. Do more kids take up more ‘popular sports’ in USA; the answer is a resounding yes. Basketball and Baseball are also extremely popular, of which only the former finds a place in the Olympics (Baseball has been on and off in the Olympics). Regardless, if you go around and ask kids watching the sport they are more likely to give you the names of the NBA players but might not know who amongst them plays for the US team.
I’m citing this example to show that just because a majority of people watch a popular sport doesn’t mean that the other sports get affected because of that. Let’s be honest here, how many of you have watched swimming or shooting or wrestling outside the Olympics, Asian Games or Commonwealth Games. A very few of you, I’m sure. The problem doesn’t lie in the viewership; the problem lies in the lack of infrastructure and support at the school levels and college levels. The problem lies in many deserving candidates not being able to take up sports due to lack of economic benefits or pressure to pursue more academics.
Rather than addressing or suggesting solutions to solve this problem, I find people routinely bashing cricket as the reason we are failing. If so, many Indians have watched football (soccer) regularly, be it the world cup or the local leagues in many countries. Why isn’t that popularity resulting into a higher ranking for the Indian team in the football (soccer) rankings? The sad truth is that nothing succeeds like success, and the success of the Indian team in cricket has prompted many youngsters to take up cricket.
This is not to suggest that the BCCI has been clean. I have questioned them multiple times about various issues, including their misconduct, hegemony and the allegations of financial irregularities. But one thing you cannot deny is that they have managed the sport better in India than most of the other associations. The benefits have gone down to the players and the former players are also being taken care of. To quote the clichéd phrase ‘Let’s give the devil his due’.
The athletes need our encouragement and more so from the system. Every time there are games like this, you have legitimate complaints about the lack of equipment and complete apathy from the officials about the conditions. Irrespective of this the athletes compete and give their best. After this, when you have well known experts on nothing like Mrs. Shobha De making such comments to gain relevance in the public discourse it does not help the case. Expressing disappointment over the loss of medals is one thing, but accusing the athletes of only competing for selfies shows that she does not have any regard for their sacrifices and completely ignorant of the ground realities.
The ground realities of Indian sport are far too complex just to be addressed in one piece. There are various commendable efforts like ‘Olympic Gold Quest’ by Geet Sethi and Prakash Padukone with Viren Rasquinha as CEO, P. Gopichand’s academy and many more like these coming through. Whether these result in to immediate successes or not remains to be seen, but so far the signs have been encouraging. The revival of Hockey is great news for India too, and the Indian team certainly has been playing aggressive hockey and is set to pose a significant challenge in the Olympics.
That being said, the realistic goal has to be short term of putting in focused efforts in specific sports and making sure that children in schools and at college level are taking it up. To convince kids to take up a sport that does not have the same glamor associated with many other sports is tough. Especially, since the spotlight is on once every 4 years, the pressure to perform well can be nerve wracking. Yet the Indian athletes have done well and come very close this time to getting medals but unfortunately haven’t crossed the line yet.
Whether this changes or not remains to be seen, but for the sake of Indian sport let’s not make it Cricket vs the Olympic sports. Both of them can happily co-exist and have plenty to offer to each other. India needs many Abhinav Bindras, Dipa Karmarkars, Dattu Bhokanals, Vijender Singhs and more. Their sacrifice to get to where they have gotten is commendable. After all in a country of 125 crores India absolutely should have multiple sports and multiple champions ruling the roost. No need to compare one against the other.
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