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India’s Olympic odyssey: The hype
Flying Finn, ballistic Beamon & Sptiz’s blitz
Hosting a chance
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India’s Olympic odyssey: The hype While a lot of noise is made over India’s dismal show after the Olympics, little is done to prepare sportspersons for the events. Ravi Dhaliwal reports on how poor infrastructure and training may erode India’s medal hopes in Beijing Jesse Owens had once famously remarked, “Olympics — a lifetime of training for just ten seconds.” The quote sums up a sportsman’s frame of mind during the preparations for the biggest sporting event. In India’s case, we are used to scrutiny only after the eggs have hatched, and most of the times, the ugly duckling is out. We criticise the athletes, the sport bodies, the system and the fate of a country of a billion and it’s inability to hold its own in the world arena. But the big question — Why did we fail? — has more relevance before the action begins, rather when the report card has been issued. Our patriotic ego is bruised when the medal tally cuts a sorry figure, but one look at the training and preparatory facilities would help clear the air and also the ‘expectations’. A visit to the National Institute of Sports (NIS) and after speaking to a cross section of experts engaged in the preparation of Indian squads, revealed that there was little or no scientific support forthcoming for sportspersons taking part in the Olympics. Otherwise how does one explain the sudden departure of top athletes to Malaysia and other European countries from the NIS to train at a time when experts say “they should have been together.” With the senior athletic camp in full swing, the Athletic Federation of India (AFI), suddenly decided to send all those athletes who have qualified for Beijing to train outside the country’s shores. A top AFI official, preferring anonymity, disclosed that since there was no scientific support forthcoming, they decided to send their athletes abroad. Earlier, a major role was played by sports physiologists, psychologists, bio-mechanic experts, system management experts, videographers and nutrionists in training of teams for international events. However, this time there is none to provide that vital support. A official revealed that SAI had imported Rs 80 lakh of equipment for the faculty but now it is lying in a state of complete disuse. Things have come to such a pass that the incharge of the Bio Mechanics department has been shifted to the Works (Engineering) section ever since a scandal involving financial irregularities broke out in the Institute. A former Olympian disclosed, “ National Sports Federations (NSF’s) hold camps at the NIS because it used to boast of a good sports science faculty which now has been rendered redundant. In future federation’s might think of holding their national camps at the Bangalore SAI centre or at other places.” Prominent among those who have been sent abroad are the 4 into 400m women’s relay quartet of Chitra Somen, Manjit Kaur, S. Geeta and Mandeep Kaur. A lot of people are saying the quartet has a good chance of being in the contention for a medal. However, AFI experts, including foreign coaches, disclose that for all practical purposes they are far too behind as far as Olympic standards are concerned. They also cite the fact that after the Asian Grand Prix which concluded a fortnight ago at Karat (Thailand), the team was ranked a lowly 15th in the world. Many feel that with the Olympics just around the corner, the quartet’s timing should have improved, which has not been the case. The team’s 3.30: 42 seconds timing at Karat is giving sleepless nights to the AFI. Indian actually do have a ray of hope as far as the discipline of boxing, the king of combat sport, is concerned. For the first time ever, 5 pugilists have qualified. They are Akhil Kumar, Dinesh Kumar, Vijender Kumar, K.L Lakra and Jitender Kumar. Chief coach G.S. Sandhu and his deputy BIJ Fernandez exude supreme confidence about their wards’s performance in Beijing. The boxer expected to perform the best is the unpredictable Akhil Kumar who on way to qualifying has already pinned down many Olympic-bound boxers from other countries. However, he is carrying an injury and an eagle’s eye is being kept on his fitness by his coaches. Akhil, who this year has performed beyond the expectations of many experts, has already undergone surgery in South Africa on his hand and is now in rehabilitation. In weightlifting where just one women lifter-Monica Devi- has qualified in the 69 kg weight class, nobody, barring officials of the Indian Weightlifting Federation (WFI), expect a medal. At trials held recently in the Army Sports Institute (ASI), Pune, where the camp was shifted from the NIS after doping allegations surfaced, she lifted 224 kg while in reality a medal can be expected if she lifts anything above 240 kg which is a long shot. Karnam Malleswari competing in the same weight category in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, bagged the bronze with a lift of 239.5 kgs. This comparision is enough to know where Monica will stand in Beijing. Despite this, WFI insist that Monica will be on the Delhi-bound flight from Beijing with a medal hanging around her neck. In wrestling in the free style category (no grapplers this time qualified in the Greco-roman category) again looking for a medal will be akin to finding the proverbial needle in the haystack. The three who will be making up the numbers in Beijing are Rajeev Tomar, who out performed ace grappler Palwinder Cheema to book an Olympic berth, Yogeshwar Dutt and Sushil Kumar. Nobody is expecting a medal anyway in this contact sport. The Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) officials say it will be a good exposure trip for the boys. But can an event of the magnitude of the Olympics be called an ‘exposure’? Let us give India’s showing at previous Olympics some perspective. Surinam, Algeria, Turkey, countries much smaller than our own and whose cumulative population might fit into Calcutta with elbow room to spare, have won a gold each. Or let’s put it another way. In just one Olympics (1992), Jamaica won more individual medals (6 silver, 1 bronze) than we have in more than a century. Still, next month, the IOA will be sending a jumbo squad to Beijing. And also just note how many officials make it on the tax payer’s money under the garb of
organising the 2010 New Delhi Commonwealth games.
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...and the hope
With another Olympic Games round the corner, there is the familiar talk of India ending the Olympic medal drought. However their optimism is not widely shared.
Union minister for youth affairs and sports Dr M.S.Gill put it rather bluntly when he said he did not hold out much hope for India getting a podium finish at Beijing, except, perhaps, a surprise show by the women’s 4x400 metres relay team. Hockey was once India’s golden goose, and the country rode on the past record of eight hockey golds. But that hope seemed to have vanished for ever after the title won in a depleted field by the Vasudevan Bhaskaran-led team at the Moscow Olympic Games in 1980, which was marred by a US-led boycott. India suffered the ultimate humiliation when the hockey team failed to qualify for Beijing, for the first time since modern Olympics began in 1928. In over a century of Olympic participation, India have just four individual medals to show of—two bronze and as many silver. K.D.Jhadav (bronze, wrestling, Melbourne, 1956), Leander Paes (bronze, tennis, Atlanta, 1996), Karnam Malleswari (silver, weightlifting, Sydney, 2000) and Rajyavardan Singh Rathore (silver, double trap shooting, Athens, 2004) were those lucky ones. Sadly, India figure nowhere in the sports map of Olympic disciplines, and if the country has made some strides to make a mark in international sport, it is in cricket, chess and tennis. This time, the shooters, boxers and the tennis players are touted out as medal prospects. The shooters are being projected to hit bull’s eye in more than one event, though the same cannot be said about the boxers and the tennis players. “We are hopeful. If the initial draw is good, our boxers can do well”, echoed former National coach Om Prakash Bharadwaj and Indian Amateur Boxing Federation secretary-general Muralidharan Raja. True, Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi, after calling a truce to their war of words, are gearing up for a medal in their fourth Olympics, though they have not played much tennis together of late to exude confidence. The last time, the Indian pair’s slender hope of winning a bronze was dashed by Mario Ancic and Ivan Ljubicic in Athens. Sania Mirza will pair up with the US-based Sunita Rao in the women’s doubles. Sania will also figure in the singles in her first Olympics, having received a direct entry, though her inconsistency and a packed field with top-ranked, star names in the fray, make the task of Sania and Sunita very, very tough. Surprisingly, Sania and Sunita have not paired up together after the Fed Cup in Malaysia early this year. India will be fielding athletes in archery, athletics, judo, wrestling, weightlifting, badminton, table tennis, swimming and rowing too, though there is no ghost of a chance of anyone picking a medal in these disciplines.
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Flying Finn, ballistic Beamon & Sptiz’s blitz
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Hosting a chance
The script is unlikely to change in the 29th edition of the games at Beijing. In the last edition of the games at Athens, India’s only podium finish came when Major Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore claimed the silver in the men’s double-trap shooting event. And this time too the story might well be the same although a lot of hope is being pinned on the shooters and boxers. With the hockey team now out of the competition in Beijing it is quite likely that the Indian contingent, which lands in Beijing will have more officials than sportspersons. And these officials will have no hesitation in hogging the limelight rather than the sportspersons, most of whom come from humble backgrounds. These officials will ostensibly go to Beijing to study how to conduct the Olympic Games since they are hopeful (one wonders why) of Delhi getting a chance to hold the games in 2020. Strange as it might sound the miserable performance of India in the Olympics has not deterred the IOA from making plans to bid for the 2020 Olympic Games even after the IOC refused to allot the 2014 Asian Games to New Delhi. IOA president Suresh Kalmadi has been quoted as saying that the national capital will have excellent infrastructure in place, thanks to 2010 Commonwealth Games, by the time the IOC bid opens in 2011. The IOC will decide the winner in 2013. But Kalmadi seems to have conveniently forgotten that holding the Commonwealth Games and the Olympic Games are altogether different cups of tea. And one major difference which seemed to have slipped off the mind of the powers that be is the fact that the Commonwealth Games do not have any team competition. But the Olympics have so many! Delhi is already bursting at the seams and in spite of the metro one finds it difficult to move from one place to another giving the teeming traffic. This time too the organisers had great difficulty finding place to build a games village. As it is building of the games village for the Commonwealth Games generated a lot of controversy and the project is now racing against time. With the Olympics needing a much bigger village than what is needed for the Commonwealth Games where will it be built? The IOA should concentrate on building up a sports base in the country. What the country needs at the moment is more specialised coaching, equipment and a bigger base of talent so that the best can come forward to represent the country at least in areas where India can be among the medals.
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In 1920, at the Antwerp Olympics, Paavo Nnurmi known as the ‘Flying Finn’ was pitted against a Frenchman Joseph Guillemot in the 5000 metres. Paavo Nurmi lost the race by five seconds. That was the only long-distance running event he lost in the next eight years. For years he subjected himself to endurance training in the forest of his native Finland.
American long jumper Bob Beamon, who had leapt straight into the record books with a mammoth jump of 8.90 metres in the 1968 Mexico Olympics, was one jump away from elimination, when team-mate Ralph Boston offered him a tip on his run-up. The previous record had been bettered by almost 60 cms!
Mark Spitz was often told by his father that “swimming is’nt everything winning is”. Spitz made his father proud when he won seven gold medals at the 1972 Munich Olympics, the only athlete to ever to do so at a single Games.
A nation of a billion plus but India is still looking for the elusive individual gold in the Olympic Games. So far India have won eight gold medals (all in hockey with the last coming in 1980 at Moscow when the field was truncated by the western boycott), four silver medals and five bronze medals in all the 28 Olympics held so far. A lot has been said, grandiose plans have been laid down, union sports ministers have been changed, money has been spent on “foreign exposure” but nothing seems to have worked. But even in this bleak situation, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), which always loves to talk big and deliver little, plans to hold the Olympic Games in India in future but Indian sports has refused to take even a step forward, what to talk of a leap.