The biggest stage - “ The Olympics”:
In India, if a random person is asked which sport they follow50, 8 out of 10 would say cricket, and 5 out of 10 would say football. In the Olympics, there are 40+ sports within which there are 300+ events specific to each sport. This is where the lethargy sparks from. We Indians have achieved many greater things compared to any other nation, but the Olympics has never been our cup of tea. I don’t suggest that Indian sportspeople are lesser compared to others all around the world. I can’t deny that there are world champions here, but there are very few who have bitten a medal at the Olympics.
To look back at history, India managed to bag a total of 35 medals gold, silver, bronze all-inclusive, which is just 7 more than what Michael Phelps has won in his entire career. We all felt proud when Neeraj Chopra won the gold after 100 years of track and field medal drought. With that, he became the only second athlete in history to win individual gold at the Olympics.
The setback:
We all know there is a heavy influence of politics on the sporting scene in India. Apart from that, some sports suffer without a good sponsorship. The fact that the present Hockey team, both men and women representing India, are sponsored by The Odisha government and not the Indian government is sighful. We would have heard stories of a Kenyan boxer winning by a knock-out on the frustration that his country’s government not sponsoring him. We Indians should not reach that state and look at what we can do to avoid it.
Tokyo Olympics 2020 is the only Olympics to which we sent 126 athletes from India, which is the highest in history. At the same time, there are countries like the United States of America that top the list with a whopping number of 630 players. Next to the USA, Japan is sending 552 contingents.
With that number, we are participating in just 18 sports out of 40+ sports. We lack the facilities and privilege to learn a sport in a country with a silver medal-winning population numbers and an exuberant youth population. Societal ideologies play a different spoilsport in the youth. With all this being said, we can only hope that we groom our future generation, offering a much wider scope than we have today.
The ray of hope:
The sporting scene now in India is weak, with them offering government jobs for the well-performing players. No doubt if it improves the economic status of that individual but offers no good for the bench strength of the sport. So we should look at the other possible ways to appreciate a contingent's efforts representing our country. We should be able to participate in all the sporting events to bag a decent number of medals, which will eventually put us at the top of the table.
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