Paris Olympics: After great expectations, a reality check for India

It’s time then to draw the balance sheet of India’s performance in Paris Olympics. A haul of six medals (one silver and five bronze) has helped them finish at par with their show in London 2012, while it will be nothing short of a miracle if the Court of Arbitration (CAS) rules in favour of Vinesh Phogat for a joint silver to add to the tally.  

Take the six fourth place finishes along with it – but that hardly compensates for the anti-climax of a campaign that a 117-member contingent returned across 16 disciplines. There was, no doubt, enough mettle in this group to breach the double digit mark of medals but then the so-near-yet-so-far syndrome created the big gap between the hype and reality.

Even before the closing ceremony of the Games have taken place, the odd buzz in the social media have begun that the athletes have under-performed despite the Union Sports Ministry pulling out on all stops to invest to the tune of Rs 470 crores for training, support staff and injury management of athletes in the Paris cycle. A leading regional website took the cake in coming up with a headline on how young wrestler Aman Sehrawat brought the country a medal despite only incurring only one tenth of the expenses of Neeraj Chopra.  

It’s a typical example of the kneejerk reaction from sections of the Indian media – and what prompts them is also the way the government machinery keeps reminding us about the financial support they extended for each of the athletes. How often does one find such examples from any other sporting nation of reminding the media all over again about how much the government cares?

The Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS), drawn up by the Union government after India’s poor haul of two medals in Rio 2016, has certainly made the lives of the elite athletes easier now. The stories of an athlete or shooter running from pillar to post to mobilise resources for training or exposure trips is unheard of now, but then it should be viewed as part of the Sports Policy rather than the largesse of the government or any individual. Talk of the politics of sports grants, and this is it.

What also struck a discordant note was the way the legendary Prakash Padukone, who had been to Paris as a mentor of the badminton team, singled out his protégé Lakshya Sen after the latter squandered a lead to lose the bronze medal play-off match. It was definitely a case of choking but then to pick out on the country’s best singles prospect for the future after a superlative campaign – right in the middle of the Games – seemed like an act of shifting the onus more than anything else.

‘’After Milkha Singh in ’64 and P.T. Usha in the Eighties, we have had so many fourth place finishes. I think that it’s high time that the players also take responsibility,’’ said Padukone, someone known to be normally balanced with his words. ‘’They (the government) have all done whatever they can. Ultimately, the responsibility is on the players to go and deliver when it matters the most,’’ he said.

Strong words these, but did he pick up on a softer target like Lakshya when two of the biggest disappointments came in his own discipline – that of the in-form Satwik-Chirag duo and double medallist P.V. Sindhu. The later had a virtual carte blanche from Sports Authority of India (SAI) as she changed her overseas personal coach at least three times, shifted base to Bengaluru for training but eventually failed to match her exalted standards.

The fact that there had been half-a-dozen fourth place finishes shows that Indian competitors are not exactly there to make up the members anymore. However, it’s pertinent to remember that the Olympics are always a different ballgame and if one was making a projection of 10-plus medals on the basis of India’s 107-medal haul in the last Asian Games, then it was being presumptious.

Here is an example to illustrate the point. Shooting and athleteics had accounted for 50% of the medals in Hangzhou and not surprisingly, they accounted for the biggest number of athletes in Paris. They all made their way by winning quotas and while shooting at least produced three medals and a number of promising finishes, the overall performance in track & field were terrible.

Apart from the generational athlete that Neeraj Chopra is, only one competitor in Avinash Sable qualified for the final in the 3000m steeplechase. The Indian men’s 4 x 400m relay quartet made the second heat but narrowly failed to make the medal race. Quite a letdown after the claims of Adille Sumariwala, the long serving president of Athletics Federation of India (AFI) that they would better on their Tokyo performance.

 Well, it’s not the athletes who made tall claims but the nation had pinned their hopes on them. The trolling and the memes can only set back them further!

The Medallists

Manu Bhaker (Bronze, 10m Air Pistol)
Manu Bhaker, Sarabjot Singh (Bronze, 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team)

Swapnil Kusale (Bronze, 50m Rifle 3 Position)

Team India (Bronze, Men’s hockey)

Neeraj Chopra (Silver, Javelin)

Aman Sehrawat (Bronze, Men’s wrestling freestyle 57kg)