If politics were an event in Olympics, India would have won all medals
By T J S George
12th August 2012 12:32 AM
It is heartbreaking to see a billion Indians hoping against hope for one creditable performance by one Indian in the Olympics—and then exploding in excitement when a humble bronze is won. Did you notice any excitement in the US? In China? They win gold by the tonne and take it as routine.
Champion countries didn’t get there easily. Behind their success are back-breaking training systems and long years of dedication. In America, as the world’s leading capitalist state, sports training is a business enterprise conducted with all the paraphernalia and competitiveness of corporate culture. In China, it is part of communist rigour where top results are mandatory. India fails in this league because sports is an extension of politics for us. Athletics or archery, football or cricket, hockey or tennis, we run them all as we run the Nationalist Congress Party or some such. Sports in India is meant for the Suresh Kalmadis of India.
Hockey is a good example of politics as destroyer. India was Olympics champion in hockey eight times. The team today has some new players who performed well enough to win matches against Pakistan, China, Japan and South Korea. But they finally fell victim to the power struggle between the warring factions of the game, Hockey India and Indian Hockey Federation. Pressure from the sports ministry in Delhi and warnings from the International Hockey Federation failed to enforce peace. The hockey politicians fought so savagely that the players were demoralised. The humiliation in London matched the humiliation in Beijing four years ago.
Such things are unimaginable in other countries. American training centres maintain high standards because the competition among them is stiff. They provide high-quality services in physical conditioning, mental training, sports psychology, speed techniques and even coach education. Because the English Premier League is “the most successful, viewed and profitable soccer league in the world”, football training schools also teach British philosophy.
China was an under-performer not long ago. It won its first Olympic gold medal only in 1984. Then it decided to take a leaf from Stalin and start a whole new culture in sports. Back in the 1950s, Stalin had picked sports as a field where the Soviet Union’s supremacy could be put on display as a winning point in the Cold War. He succeeded. In events like gymnastics, weighlifting, kayaking and wrestling, Russian and East European stars became household names across the globe. Every human fell in love with Nadia Comaneci. But the methods Stalin used to achieve this distinction would not be acceptable to others. Coaches were told the number of medals their wards had to win in a particular event. If the quota was not filled...
In China, government diktat was an acceptable way to achieve excellence. Once it was decided to become a sporting nation, China set up special schools to train sportspersons. There are 3,000 of them today where some four lakh children, picked up by talent scouts, are given rigorous training. From them, half a lakh “gifted” children are chosen for specialised training in elite sports schools.
It’s a tough life for the kids who start at age 5 and 6. Mornings are for general education. Then four hours of relentless training under unsmiling coaches. The children are kept fulltime in boarding houses, with access to parents only on weekends or perhaps monthends, rather hard in a country where the one-child norm is law. There are occasional reports of coaches beating the children, even doping them. But medals are what matter, and medals they win.
We are an honourable capitalist country, so we can’t resort to communist methods. But why are there not enough entrepreneurs setting up sports schools with honourable profit motives? Perhaps they have no prospects when politicians are meddling in sports. So we are back at the mercy of the state. Unless the government bans political leaders from sports, our athletes will have to find gold in bronze, and the nation must hold its head between its knees. How about FDI in sports? At least PPP?
tjsoffice@newindianexpress.com
Post a Comment
Recent Activity
- India's poor need more purchasing power, not doles
- Japan support sought for Vision 2023
- Rahul aide to pick Nellore MP candidate
- Kerala: PSC guidelines put candidates in a fix
- Dead son's education loan: Bank seeks its pound of flesh
- 'Kerala will lose 10 per cent of water resources by 2030'
- With Advani visit, Modi begins charm offensive
- Social media goes martial over High Court's marital ruling
- Indian Coast Guards help rescue 26 crew from shipwreck near Yemen
- Thousands missing near Kedarnath shrine
- Tata Motors unveils 8 upgraded models of passenger vehicles
- Flaws in Koodankulam plant
- Army Major captures 'UFO' in Kerala
- Prices of 348 drugs to come down drastically from May 15
- 60 killed in Nigerian village attacks
- 10-year-old prodigy to enter Harvard University
Comments(5)
It all started with a bang,though ended pitiably. The author holds brief for FDI in sports, which is the most raging controversy in India. The article fails to identify the areas lacking in sports. Neighbour's envy is no owners pride. Envying U.S and China, the nations which train the competitors for five years,cuts no ice. We list our players just a fortnight hence. Let us not forget, that our athletes live in abject poverty. Shanti, 800m gold medalist of CWG works in a brick kiln for a daily wage of Rs.200/-.Her hand that jubiliantly was waved the medal, is seen blistering now. The wrestler,Narin Singh,who entered upto quarter final in olympics, lives in his 10X6 room in Jogeshwari, Mumbai.The list is long. When ICCI, the richest sports body, enjoys immunity from all taxes, when an international cricket match played for a week or so guarantees each player a minimum of 1 crore, should we blame our talents? Make a soul-searching analysis as the answer is that simple.
Posted by C.Chandrasekaran(Madurai) at 08/12/2012 07:37 Reply to this Report abuse
congrats George for yet another excellent article. keep it up
Posted by n mohan at 08/12/2012 15:04 Reply to this Report abuse
London 2012,India's medal count: Shoonya Gold(0), Do Silber(2) end Char Bronje(4). Total Six Medal and in 47th pojision. The last 2 lines i wrote in Hindian-Inglis! But why only Six medal for 1.3 Billion people? The answer is coz. of Politicians at work.How can you have Indian sportsmen winning medals when you have people like Sures Kalmadi (Calamity!) or Sonia 'Gandhi' who getting to decide who gets to play phor Indiya? No wonder we are Shoonya in iSports. Just see how many playgrounds, if any, are there for kids in India? All the money is eaten by the Netas. They 'Ate' 40,000 Crores of money meant for CWGames in Dilli last year without any shame.We had a good chance to get atleast a Gold in Tennis.But fighting between Paes and Bhupati messed it up. Take Hockey:Most players did not know basic dribbling. Read the piece written by former player Baskaran in the Hindu paper.The Hockey team was pathetic. We need former sportsmen to be in charge and not allow Netas in, anywhere in Sports!
Posted by Venkat at 08/13/2012 21:47 Reply to this Report abuse
"We are an honourable capitalist country,so we can't resort to communist methods." George, So long as this mentality persists, India will be bumping along the bottom for ever in medals tally! Unless India's sports youth are put through some regimented training, slackness in applying themselves to chosen disciplines will be the likely result.The Indian Hockey Federation ought to have been ruthless and outlawed one of the warring factions; they did not do so, with disastrous effect on the moral of players.Again Tennis Association of India could have been decisive on the disputes between players, but they caved-in and the results on courts were there for all to see.There could be no democracy shown on management of players,the coach functioning as absolute dictator. The US is the world's greatest capitalist country and the they won the most medals including golds and that belies your argument, George.
Posted by Curious onlooker at 08/14/2012 17:57 Reply to this Report abuse
I am one of what I believe to be millions of Indians who do not whine about Indian sports-persons not accumulating medals in Olympic. I am one of those multitude of Indians who love and enjoy sports as a form of entertainment, a healthy & harmless diversion from the humdrum occupational necessities of life. I believe I am representative of a majority who would like Indian sports-persons to win competitions and would feel very happy to witness such wins, but who would at the same time not want them to win at any cost, certainly not at the cost of being treated as human beings during what is euphemistically called 'rigorous' training. I don’t want them to be forced into a system of training that violates their human rights. I don’t want them to give me joy through a process that deprives them of their joy in the first place. Let's find humane ways of fostering excellence in sports. Let sports & games be uncomplicated sources of joy to the performers and spectators - medals or no medals.
Posted by N. Moorthy at 08/16/2012 23:20 Reply to this Report abuse