The Rio Olympics is over.

India has come back with one silver and one

bronze medal: both the medallists, PV Sindhu and Sakshi Malik, deserve
our full appreciation, as do other Indian competitors who put up a good
show and made it to the finals. The competition is razor-sharp at this level,
and the difference between making it to the finals and winning a medal is
usually hair-thin.
Of course, there has been the usual breastbeating: a nation of India's size
winning just two medals? Denmark, where I live, with a population of five
million, won 15 medals, two of them gold.
There are many ways of looking at this. One can claim, as many on the Left
do, that the very selection of games for the Olympics is Eurocentric. Games
that require a huge investment or are particularly popular in Western first
world nations - gymnastics, swimming, etc - tend to have a lot of medals
associated with them. There is an element of truth in this, but it is also
partly an excuse: there are games, like wrestling and badminton (to think of
only two where Indians did reasonably well), where we can be in the
running for medals. The other point made is the difference in investment.
Countries like UK, the US and Denmark invest at least 50 times more in a
particular sport than we do in India. This point is relevant, but it too has to
be re-formulated, for it is not enough to just notice this difference.
India, like most post-colonial nations, has a tendency to make huge
'prestige' investments. One can easily imagine some major sports complex
being sanctioned in the wake of our two medals from the Rio Olympics.
Such investments are insufficient. (They are even vulgar, keeping in mind
India's other needs.)
Why? Let me tell you a story. The Danish gold medal that got the most
attention in Denmark was won in swimming by Pernille Blume. She struck
an immediate chord in a country where swimming is compulsory most
schools.
This is what I mean by discouraging 'prestige' investments. Just as one
cannot develop a country by launching a bullet train or two, one cannot
create a body of good athletes and sportspeople by building a major sports
complex or two. One needs to create an infrastructure that percolates down
to the masses: not one but a thousand. Or, in India, ten thousand.
India also needs to select sports and games in which money can go a long
way. Wrestling, lifting and badminton, for instance. There are many such. If
we start competing with first world countries by building swimming pools
or shooting ranges (with top-level and very expensive sports guns), we will
be in a losing race from start. We simply cannot afford such facilities across
the land yet.
Some sports require too much investment: they will perforce be confined to
elite spaces (or the armed forces) in India, where they should be
encouraged of course. But we need to concentrate on other sports and
games nation-wide.
India also needs to select sports that suit Indians. Take wrestling or weight-
lifting, for instance. Given that most Indians tend to be smaller than most
Europeans, Americans and Africans, we need to focus on the lighter weight
categories even in such sports. Here, again, it might be an advantage to
focus on women, partly because Indian girls, as they tend to be less
pampered by their families than Indian boys, often have more of a drive to
succeed when given half a chance.
Finally, though, the relative failure of Indians in the Olympics is due to
socio-economic disparity: this is much greater in India than even in those
African nations that, by concentrating on their strengths, bring in medals in
a few areas.
The Indian middle class, with admirable individual exceptions, is too
pampered at one level (physically) and too driven (vocationally and
educationally) to do anything but study for jobs and degrees. And the
Indian working classes are often too deprived: not just in terms of
opportunities and facilities, but even in terms of education and nutrition.
Until this on-going tragedy at the heart of India is remedied, we will never
be a great sporting nation.

NEW DELHI: India’s booming economy has had a favourable impact on the sport of cricket,
with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) quickly becoming the richest cricket
governing body in the world. Unlike cricket, other sports in India have failed to grow, and as
such, India has struggled to evolve as a sporting nation. This is not for lack of trying. Over
the years, a series of sports have gotten their own franchise-based leagues in India, which
not only gave sportspersons job security but also helped players to develop their games.
Despite that, India has failed to emerge as a sporting nation.

Let’s look at some examples to elucidate this further. So far, India’s total medal haul is 28 in
24 Olympic Games. Michael Phelps alone has career with 23 gold medals and 28
overall. While China, the world’s most populous nation, has developed itself as the
competitive nation in the Olympics, India is yet to lay down a foundation for success for
Indian athletes. Off late, initiatives have been taken to overhaul the entire sporting culture in
the country -- a process that was started by corporates and now in involves the government,
with the collective aim to nurture and grow sports in India.

A competitive atmosphere at home helps players to get the best out of themselves.
Franchise based sporting events have been on the rise in India since 2005 when the now
defunct Premier Hockey League and Indian Cricket League hit the Indian sporting market.
But, the first big hit was the Indian Premier League (IPL), which was unveiled in 2007
following India’s maiden World T20 triumph in South Africa.

Following the IPL the Hockey Indian League (HIL), Indian Super League (ISL), non-
glamorous Pro Kabaddi League (PKL), Pro Wrestling League (PWL), Premier Badminton
League (PBL), and now the Ultimate Tennis League (UTL) are all in the fray to bring a
revolution in Indian sports.
However, these are commercial entities. India still lacks expertise and infrastructure to build
a service line for a talent pool. India needs to focus on building multi sports academies
where young children will be trained by qualified experts. At the moment, most of the players
pick up sports as per their own wish and they are developing their game keeping a personal
coach. Unlike cricket and badminton, where former Indian players like Pullela Gopichand
and Vimal Kumar took initiatives to build academies where young aspirants are coming to
fulfill their dream, other sports don’t have any functional infrastructures.

India has become a reckoning force in the world of badminton. The likes of Kidambi
Srikanth, Parupalli Kashyap, B. Sai Praneeth, Ajay Jayaram and Sameer Verma made India
an invincible force in men’s badminton while PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal are two Olympic
medal winning Indian women who are dominating in women’s badminton. Alongside cricket,
badminton has become a national sensation in India due to the rise of many talented
youngsters and this happened because of players who are being trained by former players
and getting advanced facilities to prepare themselves.

But, India’s Olympic performance is still not impressive. Since independence, India failed to
produce a blueprint for success. So far, whatever India has achieved are individual
achievements of athletes like P V Sindhu, Abhinav Bindra and Vijender Singh. Recently,
surprising everyone, India enjoyed an overwhelming success at the Asian Athletics Meet in
Odisha as India finished at the top with 29 medals in Odisha leaving China behind at the
second position. Thus far, Indian sporting governing bodies hadn’t shown any substantial
intent to make a big change in Indian sports, especially in Track and Field, which is part of
renowned Asian Games, Olympic Games, and Commonwealth Games.

However, following the successful Asian Athletics championship, Indian Sports Ministry
released an ambitious blueprint for producing talents for various events. The ministry made
yoga and sports mandatory at school with an ambition to make India a sports nation. The
Union Sports Ministry released many projects with the deadline to fulfill the targets. The
ministry also pledged that sportspersons would have five per cent reservation in coveted
government jobs. The Indian government also decided to allot money to the athletes for their
development for the 2018 Olympic Games.

On a happy note, recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled a TransStadia in

Ahmedabad in front of India's sporting icons where athletes from every nook and corner of
the country will enjoy advanced facilities. No doubt, the modern facilities at TransStadia were
built to help Indian athletes, but India needs much more stadiums like this to help athletes to
prepare themselves for tough conditions.

No doubt, these projects will bring a revolution in Indian sports. Following the implementation
of these projects, a sporting awareness will grow among Indian fans and it will encourage
young children to take up track and field sports as their profession. Till now, India failed to
ensure track and field sports players’ job security which is one of the reasons that not many
Indians take up these sports sincerely.

In the meantime, India also pledged to host as many multi sports events to inspire athletes to
keep themselves up for tournaments. The year 2017 and 2018 will see India hosting many
marquee tournaments like FIFA U-17 World Cup in October, Himalayan Games in
December and in 2018 the Hockey World Cup in Odisha.
 At the same time, considering India’s booming economy and Indian sports enthusiastic
masses, FIFA, FIH and many other world sports bodies are planning to host tournaments in
India to get the monetary benefit. India has to grab these opportunities to create a culture
amongst the fans and sportspersons.

While the projects have only taken a baby step, the government has to ensure that they full
their targets in a given deadline. Alongside the government, the Indian media will also have
to take an initiative to unearth talents and to feed readers about the rise of young athletes.
The government will also have to involve the media in this process as the media is the only
medium to disseminate information amongst the masses. The media can unearth talents and
give readers a lucid human interest story about the rise of an athlete. Keeping in mind that
sports and its icons need encouragement, the national media and government should work
side by side in order to make India a sporting nation

Olympic losers: Why is India so bad at

sport?

Justin Rowlatt South Asia correspondent

 3 August 2016

Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionDipa Karmakar is the first Indian woman gymnast to qualify for
the Olympic Games

"We have never won a medal for running," says the Indian sprinter Dutee Chand, "but with God's grace I
will get to the finals and I will win one."

If the fastest woman in India succeeds, it will be a breakthrough for Indian sport.

The world's second most populous nation has the worst Olympic record in terms of medals per head.

In the past three decades, it has won only one gold medal - for the men's 10m rifle in 2008.

In London, in 2012, it bagged its best haul, six medals, or one for every 200 million people.

In 2008, it got just three medals. Before that, it was lucky to come home with a single medal.

Compare India's performance with minnows such as Grenada and Jamaica, which regularly get a medal for
every couple of hundred thousand people.

So why isn't India punching its weight?

One reason is undoubtedly money.

India, despite its space programme and burgeoning population of billionaires, is still a very poor nation in
terms of per capita income, and sport has never been a priority for the government, according to Shiva
Keshavan.

Keshavan is far and away India's greatest Winter Olympian.

He competes in luge, a kind of super-fast sledge. In two of the past five Winter Games, he was the only
Indian to qualify, the only member of a team of one. Yet his ticket to Sochi was paid not by the Indian
government but by crowdfunding.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionDutee Chand will be the first Indian woman sprinter in
36 years to participate in the Olympic 100m

And the lack of government - or any other - funding has also seen Keshavan adopt an eye-poppingly
dangerous training regime.
There are no luge facilities in India, so he screwed wheels to the bottom of his sledge and practised on
Himalayan roads, overtaking cars and lorries to reach speeds of up to 100km/h. (62mph)

"At one point I couldn't sustain my career," says Keshavan.

"I couldn't go for training, I couldn't go for competitions because I didn't have the money for that, so I
started looking for sponsorship. And I actually went to 100 companies before one of them said yes."

He believes the chronic lack of resources has undermined his performance, and that of most other Indian
athletes.

"I think to be sustainable we have to have a proper system for athlete selection and training from a young
age," he says.

The Indian Olympic Association admits the country has not always done enough to support its athletes, but
says there is more to India's sorry performance than just a shortage of cash or organisation.

Its head, Narayana Ramachandran, says sport is rarely at the top of anyone's agenda - and that includes
athletes and their families.

"Sport has always taken a back seat vis a vis education," he says.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

Most Indian families would prefer their children became dentists or accountants than Olympians, Mr
Ramachandran says.

"Families tend to give their children more education," he says.

"The view is concentrate on education, rather than sport. The basic feeling is that sport doesn't bring the
money that is required to run a family."

India's cultural and caste traditions play a role too, according to Prof Ronojoy Sen, of the University of
Singapore.

He has written a book on the history of sport in India and believes the country's poor Olympic record has
deep roots.

Indians have traditionally seen themselves primarily not as individuals, but as members of their caste, tribe
or region, he says.
Even when people excel in sport, they are often discouraged from pursuing it to top levels, by their
families and wider community.

And social stratification has meant different castes tended not to play sport together.

"The lower castes constitute the bulk of India's population, and these lower castes are also the ones who
don't have access to education, don't have access to good nutrition, health," Prof Sen says.
Image captionIndian Olympic Association president Narayana Ramachandran says sport struggles to find a
role in the country

"That has meant that a large part of India's population hasn't been able to take part in sport, and hasn't had
access to sporting facilities."

There is one sport in which India does, of course, excel: cricket. The huge money professional teams can
invest means the best athletes are almost inevitably drawn towards the wicket, draining the pool available
for other sports.

Now, private companies are stepping in to try to fill the gaps in funding for Olympic sports.

They are following the example of countries such as Australia and the UK, which have dramatically
increased their medal count by investing in elite selection and training programmes.
It has been estimated that each medal the UK won in 2012 cost £4.5m.

Maneesh Bahuguna, of Anglian Medal Hunt, which is funding a number of predominantly disprivileged
athletes, including Dutee Chand, believes its efforts will - in time - deliver results.

"What we bring to the table for these athletes is the ability to bridge the gap between those best practices
that are unavailable to them otherwise and the final performance at the Olympic Games," Mr Bahuguna
says.

"We improve their conditioning, physical and mental, by leaps and bounds."

India is fielding its best-trained and biggest-ever team in Rio.

It is hoping to deliver on the promise of the country's vast population, reaping rewards on the winner's
podium.

The Olympic motto is the hendiatris Citius, Altius, Fortius, which is Latin for "Faster, Higher,
Stronger". It was proposed by Pierre de Coubertin upon the creation of the
International Olympic Committee in 1894.