An incredible story hit Beijing Olympics mela in the form of Michael Phelps. An athlete who in his young age was diagnosed with Attention – Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) took up swimming to deal with his restless energy and got tremendous support from his sisters. Cut to 2008 – he has entered into the record books with a bang. He has won 8 medals at Beijing and smashed few world records of his own on the way. In total his tally is already at 14 gold medals discounting the two bronze medals he won at the Athens Olympics. Now, this is seriously incredible.
The above-mentioned incredible story is not just about an incredible athlete but also about an incredible sporting nation and that is USA. It is not surprising to note that the US of A leads the all time medals tally by bagging more than 2200 medals compared to the next best of Soviet Union trailing behind at 1000 odd medals.
I’ve been having numerous arguments over the last few weeks with my mates about why our nation (India) has won only a total of 18 medals in the history of Olympics and only 9 gold medals, here’s what they have in defence of our sportsmen:
1. India is a developing nation and doesn’t have too much money to spend on sports. Additionally, the average spend on sports spread across the population is miniscule.
2. Let’s face it that India doesn’t have the sporting talent and we should continually focus on what we do best, IT and the likes.
3. There is too much politics in the sports governing bodies.
4. Corporate houses like Cricket and no other support, which means more money for Tendulkar than say for Saina Nehwal (well you probably only know her because she came close to winning a medal in Badminton).
5. We can’t win medals unless we have foreign coaches.
My theory for all the arguments………….the above mentioned are nonsensical excuses. The following is my response to each one of them above:
1. China is a developing nation as well and leads this Olympic’s medals tally by already bagging 40 odd medals including 25 odd gold. It is not a matter of developing vs. developed but a matter of intent. China as a country wants to prove its prowess in every field and made its intent clear early that they will work every bit harder and put in any resource possible to take the top spot at the Olympic stage. To put few numbers in perspective, China spent approximately INR 84000 crores for organizing the Beijing Olympics in comparison to India which will approximately foot a bill of about INR 65000 crores to host the Commonwealth Games in 2010. So, clearly there is no lack of funds in the government coffers. Additionally, we as a nation are definitely in a better financial condition than some of the African, East European and South American countries who lead in front of us in the all time medals tally.
2. India has great sporting talent and as much as we should focus on our core competencies like IT, Engineering grads, etc, we shouldn’t ignore the formation of a sporting culture in our society. Sports are a career and as a parent one should see or explore the sporting talent in their kids and back them. Sports bring as much or more glory than being a high profile corporate at any organization. And mums…….let your kids play in the sun or in the rain, it makes them tough. And schools…..please provide some basic infrastructure for sports and not the likes of barren sand filled football fields (seriously, they were preparing us for some futuristic sport in our school).
3. Yes, there is too much politics in the sports governing bodies. I fail to understand that if BCCI, being a trust, and not being governed by any government body, can represent India as a nation, why does the Indian Olympic Committee or the Indian Hockey Federation need to be under government control. I am not suggesting BCCI as a perfect model as it is plagued by politics but it has certainly worked well for the players.
4. Corporate houses like to associate with success and it is as basic as that. They will associate with the T20 Indian cricket team who won the world cup but won’t associate with hockey or hockey players who didn’t qualify for the Olympics. Abhinav Bindra will get the sponsorship deals but not Samresh Jung.
5. We can win medals without foreign coaches and we have in the past. Only if our coaches were trained and equipped with modern techniques we would have more success than what we currently have. Indian coaches, majority of them get the job of a coach based on their experience and past accomplishments. Abhinav Bindra is already being asked for becoming a coach, now how stupid is that, he did won a gold but has a long way to go before he can “coach” people or rather I would assume so.
