Reality bites, amid highs: India at Olympics

Rohit Mahajan in Paris

Reality collides with ideals, reality crushes ideals. “The important thing in the Olympic Games,” said Pierre de Coubertin, naive fellow, founder of the modern Olympics, “is not to win, but to take part; the important thing in life is not triumph.”

Coubertin was either utterly mistaken or beguiling with clever words those idealist dreamers who fill up stadiums; why else would his very own Olympics award winners with a silver medal and an olive branch, runners-up with a copper/bronze medal and laurel branch?

Winning is everything, as every winner knows; high ideals — the ‘important thing is taking part’business — are for losers, to heal their beaten bodies and souls.

That’s the reason even after he won his second straight Olympic Games medal, a wistful sadness played along with the smile on Neeraj Chopra’s face. The javelin thrower mentioned, quite pointedly, more than once that this was the first time that Arshad Nadeem, the giant Pakistani, had beaten him in a competition in the eight years of their rivalry.

Winning is everything — that’s why the Indian Government would have given Chopra ~75 lakh for winning gold in Tokyo, and will cut the prize by ~25 lakh since he didn’t win gold; the bronze medallists would be awarded ~30 lakh each — those who win nothing will get nothing.

Winning is everything — that’s the reason the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) is sparing no effort and expense to get a medal for Vinesh Phogat. Vinesh, disqualified from the 50kg wrestling field for being 100 grams overweight on the day she was to fight for gold, seems to have a weak case — there cannot be an exemption of even 10 grams, even if the competitor belongs to the world’s fastest growing major economy. “Everyone who knows the rules knew she had to be 50kg or under at the weigh-in on both the days,” said an Indian coach. The IOA hired top lawyers to present Vinesh’s case, such is the importance of a winner over a loser.

No one does self-deprecation like Chopra — and no, it’s clearly not an act — but after finishing second to Nadeem, it was clear that Chopra was hurting in the heart. Politeness and grace make him a great man, but he could not help wishing that he had not finished second-best at State de France in Paris last Thursday night. He wasn’t offering excuses, but he did say, several times, that he’s been much below his best due to an injury that’s hobbled him for several years. He said if it hadn’t been for the injury, he could have thrown the spear 4 metres farther — which would have won him his second consecutive gold in the Olympics.

“When I get ready for my throws, 70-80 per cent of my focus is on my injury as I don’t want to aggravate it,” said Chopra, the reigning world champion, about his groin injury. “My speed drops and so I start pushing myself.”

“I still have many good throws left in me. Until I achieve that, I won’t get peace,” he said. That’s the mind of a champion — Chopra can get peace by crossing 90 metres, winning more gold medals at the Olympics and World Championships. This isn’t arrogance — he was just stating facts plainly, as he’s wont to.

Hockey is for the romantics. Goalkeeper PR Sreejesh, one of the 11 Indian players who won a second consecutive medal in Paris after Tokyo 2020, said sentiment matters more than money. “Our PM specially said this to us... whatever happens, whoever wins a medal, when the Indian hockey teams win a medal, that’s special, and we feel it,” he said after India beat Spain 2-1 to win bronze. “Sometimes, when you count money or emotions and love, I think money is not as important,” he added.

“But still, the big difference is, I think, the financial differences. But when it comes to hockey, we’ve got the emotions. The entire country is attached to the emotion of hockey,” he added. “Money is not everything. Emotions matter, and people show those emotions to us.” Having played his final game, he added: “Cricket should go higher, and simultaneously, we should go higher.”

Try telling 21-year-old Aman Sehrawat that winning doesn’t matter, only participating does, and he would be bewildered. Orphaned at 11, Sehrawat found sanctuary at the Chhatrasal akhara in Delhi — after an escape from his village, from the tough life of a farmer, which can be blighted by rain or drought or pests. He got bronze, but he wants gold at Los Angeles 2028. “As a child, I only knew that I had to become a good wrestler,” he said. But he didn’t know exactly who is a good wrestler. “It was much later that I learnt that the wrestler who wins a medal at the Olympic Games is a good wrestler. So I had to get a medal from the Olympics.” Don’t try telling Sehrawat that the only thing that matters is participating, for this applies to those who don’t participate; for him, someone who’s spent half his life at the Chhatrasal akhara, winning is everything.

The same could be said about Manu Bhaker, the 22-year-old pistol shooter from Jhajjar; before she turned 20, Manu had won gold at multiple events across the world, but her poor Olympics record hung like a millstone from her neck. In Tokyo three years ago, Manu had failed to qualify for her two events, the 10m pistol and 25m sports pistol. A malfunctioning gun crushed her spirit and the enduring image of Manu from Tokyo was of her shedding and wiping endless tears. In Paris, it was her smile that endured — she won two bronze medals, in 10m air pistol and 10m mixed team (with Sarabjot Singh) events. She became the first Indian woman to win a shooting medal at the Olympics, the first Indian to win two medals at a single Olympics. The shooting contingent had raised great hopes in 2016 and 2021 — and dashed those hopes. The medals in Paris — the third was won by Swapnil Kusale in men’s 25m air rifle 3 positions — somewhat salvaged the sport’s image.

The six near-misses broke hearts. Lakshya Sen led in the semifinals against defending champion Viktor Axelsen and in the bronze medal match against Lee Zii Jia — twice the sight of victory terrified him into defeat. Weightlifter Mirabai Chanu’s fourth place, after silver in Tokyo three years ago, is worthy of praise because she’d been fighting injuries. There were other fourth-place finishes — Maheshwari Chauhan and Anant Jeet Singh Naruka in mixed skeet; Manu in 25m sports pistol; Ankita Bhakat and Dhiraj Bommadevara in mixed archery; and Arjun Babuta in men’s 10m air rifle. India’s most famous fourth-place finishers in the Olympics are, of course, Milkha Singh and PT Usha; but now that India actually wins medals, new fourth-placers are unlikely to find enduring place in public memory. Now that we’ve experienced the winning feeling, we know that winning is everything.

The double-digit medal forecast for the Paris Olympics, repeated often and loudly by officials, coaches and politicians, didn’t come true; the idea that India is a rising power in world sports needs urgent reflection and correction. India may become a sporting nation some day, but it’s not so now; we’re unlikely to do very well in events that require extreme athleticism, muscle power and explosive lung power. We have achieved modest success, by world standards, in sports that require operating a machine or contraption (shooting, archery), or sports in which the size of the competitors is matched (wrestling, boxing, weightlifting). In track and field, Chopra is a remarkable exception, a bolt from the blue. It’s incredible that two javelin throwers from the Punjab-Haryana (once Punjab) region are No. 1-2 at the Olympics.

The rest of the world sees India as a very poor performer, topping the list of underperforming nations in terms of per capita GDP. It must be noted, however, that the countries that top the medal table have the biggest per capita GDP, the biggest funding for recreational and professional sports.

While Neeraj Chopra and Arshad Nadeem do personify humility, sport is about pride; sportspersons and soldiers give common citizens reasons to be proud of themselves, their countries — more than scientists and philosophers do. In our era, which is no era of war, it’s the sportspersons who carry the sole responsibility of making a people proud.

We’re also told that sport must not be mixed with politics — but we’ve known for a long time, at least since Hitler’s Olympics in 1936, that they’re inseparable. We’ve got a reminder of that in Paris, with Russia barred for invading Ukraine and Israel participating despite Gaza.

Sport is a great spectacle, the Olympics its greatest stage — modern Olympics are big business, though, and an attempt to promote a city or a country; they’re also a coming of age party for aspirational nations that wish to join the ranks of the old and new colonial powers. Beijing 2008 was China’s coming-of-age party, Rio 2016 Brazil’s. India is eyeing the 2036 Olympics and is likely to raise infrastructure, but it must study the Paris model. France built only two new stadiums for the Olympics, using magnificent monuments as the backdrop for many temporary events it created.

But the Indian reality is that big public infrastructure means there’s big money to be made by important people — ideals colliding with reality, again.