India has, over the years, struggled to find medal-winning athletes for the Olympic Games. Let's take a look at the past performances of our players and team.
As an independent country, India won the first gold medal in 1948 in field hockey defeating Great Britain in the final. In the subsequent years, the expectation of medal was from our hockey team alone. After winning gold in 1980, the hockey team went downhill. Several times after 1980, Indian contingents have to come back empty-handed with a few exceptions in between. We have been helplessly standing close to the bottom in the league of third world countries.
India saw a watershed performance at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where Abhinav Bindra stunned everyone and became the first Indian to bag an individual Olympic gold along with wrestler Sushil Kumar and boxer Vijender Singh winning bronze medal.
Only four years later, a large 83-member contingent from India took part in the London Olympics, while setting a new benchmark for the country by taking six medals — however, all bronze and silver. With rising expectations, India went to Rio with great excitement but performed miserably, somehow managing to win only two medals. Wrestler Sakshi Malik and shuttler P V Sindhu somehow salvaged India's pride by bagging a bronze and silver respectively. At Rio, we were totally out of the competition.
At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, India went with a 228-member strong contingent to participate in 18 sporting events. Out of that we were able to pocket two silver, four bronze, and one gold.
So, Why is it that we are unable to compete with the developed world? Well, there are many factors. First, our sports administration is incompetent and corrupt. Sports infrastructure set up during the Commonwealth games held at New Delhi is just one prominent example which shows the existence of corruption at every level by a powerful nexus of government officials and politicians.
Athletes like Dipa Karmakar, the first gymnast to represent India in Olympics, were ignored by the government before her coming in the limelight when she qualified for the Rio Olympics. But soon after that, government announced awards and support to show they do care about our sportsperson living in oblivion. During the Rio Olympics, the sports administration of India (SAI) refused to send Karmakar's physiotherapist to Rio while officials flew to Rio in first class. They claimed a physiotherapist was wasteful and unnecessary. Dipa, the first ever gymnast to qualify for the Olympics, came fourth just below the medal winning position. Who knows she could have come back with a medal.
Again during the Rio Olympics, Runner O P Jaisha said, "she could've died" because Indian support staff forgot to provide water at the designated stalls during the 8km race.
These incidents clearly shows incompetence of our sports administration. Therefore, the government, in order to reform and refine the sports administration, must remove corrupt and incompetent officials shying away from performing their duty.
India, the nation that reached Mars, stands nowhere close to the developed countries in the medal tally. From our previous comparison, we did our ‘best’ in Tokyo with one gold, two silver and four bronze and stood at 48th position. But as an aspiring global leader, we need to consolidate our position at the world events in order to establish ourselves as a global power.
China, on the other hand, was determined to develop a world class sports infrastructure back in the 1990s. It helped China not just to be in the competition but to compete for the top position.
Also Read: Indian Society And Sports
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