Faster, higher, stronger: The story of Indian sports

Faster, higher, stronger: The story of Indian sports


Athletes like Mirabai are the confident, conquering face of India, now an emerging force in sport, whether cricket, wrestling and hockey, or fencing, gymnastics and boxing. India has won world titles and Grand Slams, and produced several champions. In Tokyo last year, India notched up its highest tally at the Olympics with seven medals. In a country ready to embrace sport, Indian athletes are getting faster, higher, stronger.

On the shoulders of giants

Independent India’s Olympic journey began with the 1948 London Olympics, when the country sent a contingent of 79 (zero women) and won a gold medal in hockey. With stick wizard Dhyan Chand paving the way, hockey was the one sport India dominated in. Starting with Amsterdam 1928, India won 11 Olympic medals in hockey, eight of them gold. From 1928 to 1992 Barcelona, India’s only other Olympic medal came through wrestler K D Jadhav, who won a bronze at the 1952 Helsinki Games.

The medals may have been scarce but there were plenty of heroes to keep the fire burning. The country’s first track star was Milkha Singh. At the 1958 CWG in Cardiff, he won the 440-yard dash to become independent India’s first gold medallist at the Games. Two of India’s greatest athletes, Milkha Singh (Rome 1960) and PT Usha (Los Angeles 1984), finished fourth at the Olympics but their stellar careers paved the way for generations ahead.

Jayachandran 

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Jayachandran 

In 1958, Wilson Jones won the World Billiards Championship to become the first world champion from India. The artistry of Prakash Padukone made him the first Indian to win the prestigious 1980 All-England Badminton Championships, one of the biggest titles in the sport. In tennis, the Krishnans (Ramanathan and son Ramesh) and the Amritrajs (Vijay and Anand) made sure India punched above its weight in a predominantly white sport by reaching the Davis Cup finals thrice.

“The 1982 Asian Games brought some sort of awareness about sport among the middle class; there was live coverage on TV. Otherwise, our only sporting heroes were cricketers,” recalls former badminton player Vimal Kumar, who was the team coach when India won the Thomas Cup this May. The victory in the cricket World Cup in 1983 only continued the country’s obsession with the sport.

The Olympic medal trickle resumed in 1996, when Leander Paes, a wildcard entrant, clinched a bronze. Four years later, Karnam Malleswari became India’s first female medallist when she won bronze in women’s 69kg weightlifting. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore proved India’s rising stature in shooting by winning a silver at Athens 2004.

Worth its wait in gold

On 11 August 2008, Abhinav Bindra shot down the last of the barriers as he clinched India’s first individual gold medal in Olympics. An intense man, Bindra was a picture of stillness as he scored a near-perfect 10.8 on his last shot to win the 10m air rifle event. “Abhinav’s gold created that hope that we can do it,” says Deepthi Boppaiah of GoSports Foundation, a non-profit organisation established in the same year.

Having taken 61 years to win the first individual gold medal, it took another 13 to win India its second. A fired-up Neeraj Chopra hurled the javelin to 87.58m on his second attempt to win the gold at the deferred Tokyo Games last year. Adille Sumariwalla, the Athletics Federation of India head and a star sprinter in the 1970s and ’80s, believes it was, “the best thing to happen to Indian athletics.” “His success has also proved that the system we have put in place in the last 15 years works,” Sumariwalla adds. “Whether you look at Hima Das or Neeraj, they are all products of inter-district junior and sub-junior programmes (which have now grown in scope to include more than 500 districts).”

Be it governance, resources, opportunity, expertise or attitude, every variable in the last 15 years has shown a marked improvement. Indian athletes talk less of cricket cannibalising other sports, and more of their own goals. Vimal Kumar believes Indian athletes now get the necessary exposure at the right age. “Athletes are travelling abroad at 14-15, they are competing, living away from home, those things help a lot in giving self-confidence,” he says.

“If you compare it to the time I was competing, Indian sport is as different as night and day,” says Malleswari. “We used to practice barefoot. Only once we went to the national camp, we would get canvas shoes. We wore kits used by male wrestlers. If you had a sports injury, there was zero support.”

International competitions were few and far between. Sumariwalla would train on mud or grass tracks, but had to run on synthetic tracks in internationals. Apart from multi-sport events, he had to fund his own travel and training abroad. “At one time, we used to have one track coach, he coached from 100m to 5,000m. We had one coach for high jump, triple jump and long jump, pole vault and then one throws coach,” he adds.

Nowadays, through the Sports Authority of India, government initiatives like TOPS (Target Olympic Podium Scheme, established in 2014), federations and private foundations, athletes are taken care of round the year.

While cricket still remains a priority for the corporate sector, money has been diverted to other sports as well through corporate social responsibility, which was made mandatory in April 2014. “CSR is only 2% of the entire amount that comes into sport, but at least it’s coming and I’m sure in the next decade it can become 10-15%,” says Boppaiah.

According to a June 2022 study, the sports industry is likely to hit the $100 billion mark by 2027. The Indian sports budget was increased to 3,062.60 crore in 2022, a non-Olympic year. While once even Olympics TV coverage was erratic, the recently concluded 2022 CWG was telecast on multiple platforms with live streams for almost every sport, including lawn bowls.

Paradigm shift

One of the biggest victories for Indian sport has been the success of women and para-athletes. They have had to fight very different battles but have rarely backed down.

Malleswari broke the Olympic barrier at the turn of the century, and at the last three Games, India’s female athletes have helped swell the medal tally. In Rio, in 2016, India’s only two medals were won by women — a silver by PV Sindhu and Sakshi Malik’s bronze. “Look at the sports the women are doing well in — boxing, weightlifting, wrestling,” says Boppaiah. “They have broken every stereotype about women, strength and sport. They have played a huge role in building a narrative of what a young girl can do today.”

A similar paradigm shift has occurred in para sports in the last five years. At Tokyo, India won 19 medals, including five golds, seven more than the cumulative of all the previous editions. Javelin star Devendra Jhajharia won his third medal (two golds and a silver) to become the most decorated athlete in Olympics or Paralympics from India. “There was a time when if a disabled person entered a playground, people would ask, ‘What will you do here?’” Jhajharia had told Mint in an earlier interview. “Now people with disabilities are encouraged to play sport.”

The way ahead

Despite the progress, some familiar hurdles still exist, like corporate apathy and federation mismanagement. This year alone, three of the major national federations – hockey, football and table tennis—were dissolved and put under CoA (Committee of Administrators) control. “Corporates are still only involved in cricket,” says Vimal Kumar. “In badminton, we are now the world champions but BAI (Badminton Association of India) still doesn’t have a sponsor. Our athletes need that support and attention.”

For Malleswari, India’s first women’s world champion, even these conversations are a heartening sign.

“There was a time when even our coaches didn’t have much faith. At the 1995 World Championship in Guangzhou, I beat a Chinese girl to win the gold medal. When I stepped onto the podium, I realised our support staff had not brought a tape of the national anthem because no one expected us to win. I stood on the podium and sang the national anthem myself.” From Malleswari’s podium finish in 1995 to Mirabai’s at Birmingham 2022, the country has come a long way. The torch has been lit.

Deepti Patwardhan is a Mumbai-based sportswriter.

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