Lessons from the Games
October 16, 2010 7:19:42 AM
Ashok Malik
Funding the training of a few athletes would cost a fraction of the millions wasted and embezzled in putting together the CWG
Whatever the complaints about the organisation of the Commonwealth Games — and they can fill volumes — nobody will grudge Indian sportspersons their moment in the sun. In terms of benchmarking, the Commonwealth Games is often not even the Asian Games, much less the Olympics. Even so, India's record gold medal total and the breathtaking performances of some hitherto unheralded young men and women — the forgotten step-children of the Suresh Kalmadi industry — have caused enough people to ask: Is this for real? Has the Indian journey on the road to sporting glory begun?
Caution tempers the initial optimism. By and large, the standard of participants in the Commonwealth Games was not always world champion class. Krishna Poonia led an Indian sweep of all three medals in the women's discus throw event, sending the discus all of 61.51 metres. In the Beijing Olympics, this Commonwealth Games gold medallist would have finished sixth. A sixth place finish would have been creditable given the history of Indian sport, but it would not have got her to the podium.
Similarly, the women's 4x400 metres relay team won the gold in a pulsating finale. Their timing would have taken the plucky Indian girls to eighth place in Beijing 2008. Some of the shooting medallists are doubtless Olympic medal hopefuls; but others are not. The hockey team shrugged off an early thrashing by Australia to come back strongly, and the semi-final performance against fancied England was decidedly gripping. Yet, is there any guarantee Indian hockey's warring administrators will allow these players the space, the facilities and the infrastructure to sustain a recovery of India's 'national sport'?
The clichéd question that has been posed over the past week is if corporate sponsorship will finally make it to sports other than cricket. It is a little puzzling that this subject is being raised. Given the millions India spent — wasted, embezzled — in putting together the Commonwealth Games, surely sports outlays are not a problem? Funding the training and preparation of a few chosen athletes in critical events would cost a fraction of the amount.
In India, this allocation has not always been rational. Events like shooting, archery, boxing, badminton, wrestling and the few talented track and field exponents deserve more money. In contrast, hockey has drained the Indian exchequer of cash for decades without producing much. This Commonwealth Games was an exception but overall the return on investment for hockey is poor.
The larger challenge — whether related to hockey or any Indian sport — is to do with officials. Sports bodies in India are run by politicians who resort to empire building or racketeers and fixers looking to make money. World-class coaches are only sometimes hired. Ancillary professional support — doctors, nutritionists and psychologists, for example — is rarely deemed a priority. This has consequences.
Take the example of KM Binu. In 2004, this young Keralite broke Milkha Singh's four-decade old national record and clocked 45.48 seconds in the 400 metres. He reached the final at the Athens Olympics. His best timing would have been sufficient for a bronze medal in Delhi 2010. With appropriate training, Binu could have won the gold.
As it happened, Binu did not run at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium this past fortnight. Why? Like so many others — athletes, boxers, archers, you name it — he fell through the cracks. When these young tyros develop a problem — medical, economic, psychological, whatever — there is no support system for them to turn to. There is no avuncular official who will listen to them, put an arm around them and encourage them to focus on their sport, on the proverbial 'eye of the fish'. Arjuna would not have been the archer he was without Drona guiding him all the way. In this country, we honour our sportsmen with the Arjuna Award, but consign them to the fate of Eklavya. Much more than money, that is the issue.
To bemoan the absence of corporate sponsorship and criticise Indians for their cricket obsession is only half the story. For years, stakeholders in the sports industry — particularly sports television channels — have vigorously promoted alternatives to cricket. They don't want to function in a market so dependent on one sport and one vendor, the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
Indian football was sought to be made viewer-friendly. Hockey was revved-up with the Premier Hockey League. In the end, none of these ideas worked because there was no one with the business acumen or the long-term stakes that senior officials at the BCCI seem to have in making cricket a marketable and profitable commodity. This is why, outside of cricket, the most valuable properties on Indian sports television are English football, Formula One, even American basketball. These are not remotely connected with India.
In any country, the evolution of the sports and leisure economy is a function of broader economic expansion. In the United States, basketball and baseball, not to speak of tennis, golf and boxing, are all viable because the economy and consumer base are big enough to support all of these. Smaller economies are content with being one-sport societies. For instance an African nation may pour its limited resources into only football or only long-distance running.
India offers the peculiar case of an economy that is now large enough to sustain more than one sport but a society that is still essentially a one-sport entity. This leads to an over-investment in cricket. Nevertheless, when opportunities arise, there is money and interest set aside for other sports. However, as Indian success in these other sports is sporadic, the non-cricket interest too tends to be episodic.
When Narain Karthikeyan became an F-1 driver, television viewership rose, advertising support grew, Indian tourists were offered special packages to Malaysia ('Come, watch Karthikeyan drive in the Kuala Lumpur Grand Prix, soak in the country as well'). When Sania Mirza was doing well as a singles player, even her second-round match at the US Open was scheduled to coincide with prime time in India and became an ad magnet on television.
It will be no different if one of the Commonwealth Games medallists becomes a serious contender for gold at, say, the 2012 London Olympics. Yet, this will amount to momentary captivation, restricted to an individual rather than extending to an entire sport. That is the essential tragedy. Redressing it is going to take much more than hosting the Commonwealth Games extravaganza.
