Op-Ed: Rewriting India's Olympic Story

The world’s biggest sporting carnival i.e. the Olympics concluded not too long ago. India, as is mostly the case, in sporting events flattered to deceive. We

were placed 71 st out of 84 countries that won medals at the quadrennial event

held at Paris. India could not match its 2020 Tokyo Olympics of seven medals.

The disheartening aspect was that we could not clinch a solitary gold medal,

not that we should be satisfied by just one. We all are celebrating Manu

Bhaker’s double medal haul after the heartbreak she had to face at the last

Olympics, and we must, but we must not let it gloss over the shortcomings and

the challenges that lay ahead. Some experts are pointing out that the result

was not so bad as we had a few fourth placed finishes which could have gone

our way. This I feel is the nub of the problem. Not to demean any of the

athletes, but if we start to celebrate and reward ordinary performances, then

this is the kind of result you will get every time. When Prakash Padukone said

that the players need to take their share of the responsibility for their failure to

secure medals, he was barraged by a lot of trolling on social media. I tend to

agree with him. Gone are the days that there was no or very little support for

the sportpersons. The government through various programmes like TOPS or

private organisations like Olympic Gold Quest are providing the top athletes

with all the funding for training them. The need of the hour is to catch the

athletes young and to convince them and their families that sports can be

career option as well. Only then will the ground situation improve. We need to

have many more Manu Bhakers, Neeraj Chopras and Abhinav Bindras.

By-Harsh Goel