Uphill battle to raise India’s medal tally at the Olympics

Before the Indian Olympic contingent left for Rio, there was optimism and talks of how many medals India would win and whether the athletes can better the London tally. In a span of 13 days, it all boiled down to why a nation, who had sent the largest ever contingent of 118 athletes, managed to bag just one bronze medal with 23-year-old Sakshi Malik, wrestling her way to victory in the 58 kg freestyle category. After an initial week of fiasco, sports fans have been banking on tennis, hockey and badminton to lift India’s reputation from the dumps. However, a ray of hope in hockey after India beat Ireland and saw off a stiff resistance from Argentina, not before going down to a last-gasp winner against Germany and a stalemate against Canada, turned into a nightmare when Belgium outclassed India in the last-eight. While the experienced mixed doubles pair of Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna missed out on a bronze by being outclassed by Lucia Hradecka and Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic, the singles and doubles pairs earlier broke no sweat in surrendering matches.

However, a girl from the often neglected North-Eastern part of the country, almost put India on the Olympic podium. Performing the dangerous ‘Produnova – or the vault of death’ Dipa Karmakar became the first Indian to qualify for a final in the quadrennial Games. A spirited performance that made a billion people cheer at the stroke of midnight on Independence Day just fell short of a third-place finish by an agonising margin of 0.15 points. Such was the impact of Dipa’s effort that she was recommended for the Khel Ratna award soon after.

Noted mental coach Badri Narayanan of Quantum Leap Performance said it would be unfair to blatantly blame the athletes. “Everyone is trying at the Olympics. There has to be a lot of focus on self-belief and it is a timely reminder that we have to work harder. We have had success in the past. The players know it themselves and they are putting their heart out there,” he said. Commenting on the Paes and Bopanna’s first round exit, Badri said lack of chemistry between the two had cost the country a medal. “Olympics is all about the country. Both the players are world class players and unfortunately they couldn’t gel with each other. Doubles in tennis is all about how a pair can play together and we must note that the players hardly had a practice session with each other. It happened with Leander and Mahesh too, when they were together they were the best pair in the world. Once differences cropped in, they faded away. Bopanna had made a request to pair with Saketh, and in my opinion, he should have been allowed to,” Badri added.

India’s flag-bearer Abhinav Bindra, experienced shooters Gagan Narang and Jitu Rai had to bite the dust too. Bindra, however, missing the bronze by a fraction of a point was heartbreaking. Soon after the exit, the famed shooter changed his bio on social networks from ‘a Rio medal wannabe, to a former shooter’. Unlike his compatriot in archery, Jitu chose not to find excuses. “I let my country down. There was wind, but I won’t make excuses,” a visibly upset Jitu said after his ouster from his pet event, the 50m rifle.

One of the biggest disappointments was the defeat of Saina Nehwal, the poster girl of Indian badminton, who was ousted by a player 56 places below her in the world rankings. With a strapped knee, Saina wasn’t in her elements as a first-round exit shocked the world alike. However, excellent performances from Kidambi Srikanth, who matched smash to smash to two-time Gold medallist Lin Dan before going down in a gruelling quarter-final and P V Sindhu’s one step away from glory have kept the fans on the edge of their seats for the majority of the second week.

Like how a bad workman blames his tools, India’s top archer Deepika Kumari chose to find excuses with the wind, twice in as many days, being the culprit for India’s ouster from the team event. Bombayla Devi and Atanu Das showed glimpses of form before being eventually knocked-out in the later stages of the event. It was no different in the table tennis scene too as the quartet of A. Sharath Kamal, Mouma Das, Manika Batra and Soumyajit Ghosh bowed out on a whimper. National coach A. Muralidhara Rao said lack of quality international exposure did the paddlers in. 

“Two athletes from each country are allowed to participate and that translated into the crème de la crème in fray. Playing against such quality opponents needs speed and the average speed of an Indians game isn’t world class. We need to start improving on that aspect and combined with quality international exposure, we can see a marked improvement,” the coach said. Pugilist Manoj Kumar’s stunning win over London Olympics’ bronze-medallist Evaldas Petrauskas in the opening round of the light welterweight (64kg) category was one of India’s silver linings, but the dark cloud of defeat enveloped the lining soon after. In weightlifting too, India Rio journey came to an end after Tamil Nadu’s Sathish Kumar Sivalingam failed to advance to the next round in his category.

Poor infrastructure, lack of funds, limited access to training and other such problems often serve as a disadvantage for Indian athletes. A majority of the participants at Rio 2016 are reportedly from low socio-economic backgrounds and have had to face many financial problems to reach Rio. Despite attempts from the government and private agencies, infrastructure for sports training remains poor. Bindra said the momentum was lost soon after the London Games.  “The preparation has to be long term. We cannot prepare for the Olympics in one year by pumping in resources in the last minute and expecting magic to happen,” he told agencies. The ace-shooter suggested the need for a complete overhaul of the system. “We need more professionals and experts to head the sports federations. There has to be a huge change,” he added.