TOKYO — On Wednesday, in a sumo wrestling hall where women are not normally allowed to enter the ring, Lovlina Borgohain punched for all the girls out there. She jabbed for her far-flung home state of Assam, known for its fine tea but also an armed insurgency.
But above all, she fought in the Olympic women’s welterweight boxing semifinal for India, the world’s second-most populous country, which, even by the most charitable of calculations, is wanting in the Olympics. Aside from a string of men’s hockey wins generations ago, India has won only one other gold in its Olympic history, in shooting in 2008.
“I was 100 percent sure that I would come home with the gold,” said Borgohain, who spent eight years away from home to train, her father once picking tea to make a living.
Her opponent in Tokyo, Busenaz Surmeneli of Turkey, may have been shorter ahead, but her footwork was light and her hits potent. Borgohain was overwhelmed, her lanky frame absorbing blow after blow, her hopes of serving as a gold medal role model for millions of Indian girls dashed.
What message can I give them?” she said. “I just lost my match.”
Tokyo Olympics
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Why India Struggles to Win Olympic Gold
The government has overhauled an athletic system once underfunded and corrupt, but the pressure to perform weighs on competitors.
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The Indian delegation at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics last month. In recent decades, India has won only one Olympic gold medal.
The Indian delegation at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics last month. In recent decades, India has won only one Olympic gold medal. Credit...Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters
By Hannah Beech and Shalini Venugopal Bhagat
Published Aug. 4, 2021
Updated Aug. 5, 2021, 12:02 a.m. ET
TOKYO — On Wednesday, in a sumo wrestling hall where women are not normally allowed to enter the ring, Lovlina Borgohain punched for all the girls out there. She jabbed for her far-flung home state of Assam, known for its fine tea but also an armed insurgency.
But above all, she fought in the Olympic women’s welterweight boxing semifinal for India, the world’s second-most populous country, which, even by the most charitable of calculations, is wanting in the Olympics. Aside from a string of men’s hockey wins generations ago, India has won only one other gold in its Olympic history, in shooting in 2008.
“I was 100 percent sure that I would come home with the gold,” said Borgohain, who spent eight years away from home to train, her father once picking tea to make a living.
Her opponent in Tokyo, Busenaz Surmeneli of Turkey, may have been shorter ahead, but her footwork was light and her hits potent. Borgohain was overwhelmed, her lanky frame absorbing blow after blow, her hopes of serving as a gold medal role model for millions of Indian girls dashed.
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“What message can I give them?” she said. “I just lost my match.”
Image
Lovlina Borgohain of India, right, lost in the women’s welterweight boxing semifinal on Wednesday. “I was 100 percent sure that I would come home with the gold,” she said.
Lovlina Borgohain of India, right, lost in the women’s welterweight boxing semifinal on Wednesday. “I was 100 percent sure that I would come home with the gold,” she said. Credit...Luis Robayo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Borgohain has still assured a bronze, the third medal for India at these Games, after a silver in women’s weight lifting and a bronze in women’s badminton.
But every four years — in this case, five — the same questions are posed in India. Why is the country so bad at the Olympics? And does it even matter?
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, keen to raise India’s global profile, has decided that it does. After India’s substandard performance at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro — one silver and one bronze — the government began funneling money to a sports bureaucracy underfunded for decades and stained by corruption. Private ventures stepped in, training elite athletes whose upward trajectory they might be able to harness. And state money has started to trickle to grass-roots sports, too.
live updates From TokyoMedal Count and ResultsDay 12 PhotosThe Relay CurseLIVEU.S. vs. Australia Soccer
Why India Struggles to Win Olympic Gold
The government has overhauled an athletic system once underfunded and corrupt, but the pressure to perform weighs on competitors.
Share on Facebook
Share on WhatsApp
Post on Twitter
Mail
Image
The Indian delegation at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics last month. In recent decades, India has won only one Olympic gold medal.
The Indian delegation at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics last month. In recent decades, India has won only one Olympic gold medal. Credit...Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters
By Hannah Beech and Shalini Venugopal Bhagat
Published Aug. 4, 2021
Updated Aug. 5, 2021, 12:02 a.m. ET
TOKYO — On Wednesday, in a sumo wrestling hall where women are not normally allowed to enter the ring, Lovlina Borgohain punched for all the girls out there. She jabbed for her far-flung home state of Assam, known for its fine tea but also an armed insurgency.
But above all, she fought in the Olympic women’s welterweight boxing semifinal for India, the world’s second-most populous country, which, even by the most charitable of calculations, is wanting in the Olympics. Aside from a string of men’s hockey wins generations ago, India has won only one other gold in its Olympic history, in shooting in 2008.
“I was 100 percent sure that I would come home with the gold,” said Borgohain, who spent eight years away from home to train, her father once picking tea to make a living.
Her opponent in Tokyo, Busenaz Surmeneli of Turkey, may have been shorter ahead, but her footwork was light and her hits potent. Borgohain was overwhelmed, her lanky frame absorbing blow after blow, her hopes of serving as a gold medal role model for millions of Indian girls dashed.
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“What message can I give them?” she said. “I just lost my match.”
Image
Lovlina Borgohain of India, right, lost in the women’s welterweight boxing semifinal on Wednesday. “I was 100 percent sure that I would come home with the gold,” she said.
Lovlina Borgohain of India, right, lost in the women’s welterweight boxing semifinal on Wednesday. “I was 100 percent sure that I would come home with the gold,” she said. Credit...Luis Robayo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Borgohain has still assured a bronze, the third medal for India at these Games, after a silver in women’s weight lifting and a bronze in women’s badminton.
But every four years — in this case, five — the same questions are posed in India. Why is the country so bad at the Olympics? And does it even matter?
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, keen to raise India’s global profile, has decided that it does. After India’s substandard performance at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro — one silver and one bronze — the government began funneling money to a sports bureaucracy underfunded for decades and stained by corruption. Private ventures stepped in, training elite athletes whose upward trajectory they might be able to harness. And state money has started to trickle to grass-roots sports, too.
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“Now the government is trying hard to change the sports system,” said Vijay Sharma, a weight lifting coach who has worked with Tokyo silver medalist Mirabai Chanu for seven years. “But they have to do a lot. It’s a long journey they have to run.”
Abhinav Bindra, India’s only Olympic gold medalist in an individual competition, said that today's sports environment is different from when he won the 10-meter air rifle competition in Beijing. When he competed in the shooting nationals as a youth, there were 200 entrants, he said. These days, the competition draws 20,000, plus another 20,000 who didn’t cut. He noted that eight members of the Indian shooting team in Tokyo had been world No. 1s or 2s in their categories.
Image
Abhinav Bindra, who won the 10-meter air rifle competition in Beijing in 2008, is India’s only Olympic gold medalist in an individual competition.
Abhinav Bindra, who won the 10-meter air rifle competition in Beijing in 2008, is India’s only Olympic gold medalist in an individual competition. Credit...Jeff Gross/Getty Images
“It could be the start of a new era in Indian sport,” Bindra said.
On Thursday, there was national jubilation when India defeated Germany to win bronze in men’s field hockey, the team’s first medal in more than 40 years. The women’s hockey team will battle Britain for bronze on Friday. Ravi Dahiya, competing in men’s freestyle wrestling, is guaranteed at least silver after winning a semifinal bout on Wednesday, and a male javelin thrower is still in contention, too.
But for most of the Games, Tokyo has been a field of a disappointment for India. The archers missed their mark. A discus thrower came in sixth. And the much-vaunted shooters failed to follow in Bindra’s footsteps. None got close to a medal.
Not everyone in India is convinced that the country needs to measure its national self-worth in Olympic medals. India, they say, is already a sporting powerhouse, just not in pursuits that are in the Olympics.
By far the most popular pastime in India, Cricket boasts a lucrative domestic league, and the country soars in the sport’s top international echelons. Sports promoters have also unveiled a professional league for kabaddi, an ancient South Asian form of group tag in which players must occasionally chant the word “kabaddi” over and over. (The vocalization is aimed at ensuring that players are exhaling while on the offensive.)
The fact that Indian sports viewership is focused elsewhere for all but a few weeks every four years hasn’t diminished the frustrations of Tokyo. The rush of funding ahead of the Games raised expectations of gold. Indian sports officials showed off the 127-member Olympic delegation, the country’s largest, youngest, and most decorated to date.
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