From Helsinki to Hangzhou, a Story of Deprivation

There is a long line behind Neeraj Chopra, hidden under a smokescreen

In the Cambridge dictionary, the word nut has three distinct definitions: a dry fruit, a piece of metal, and a person with a keen interest in a topic. I looked it up because the term sports nut fascinates me. I have seen it get used a lot, myself included. For starters, the acoustics are great. It bounces off the tongue with a sharper and more exotic ring than the pedestrian sports fan. 

Back in more carefree times, it was a fun tag to wear. Over the years, as the nonchalance of labels got beaten down with meanings and connotations, that fun has given way to a slight discomfort. To call myself a sports nut would be to imply that I have an appetite for a lot of sports in my life, when, in reality, I consume some sports a lot of the time. I am a cricket and football nut, sure, and sometimes a tennis nut. Every couple of years, I hotbox athletics and Olympic events like a junkie. But the rest of the time, the decathlon is merely a subject of long-form articles and interviews on my Firefox tabs.

Enforced isolation during the pandemic helped expand my regular diet. Suddenly, OTT platforms were streaming badminton tournaments and Diamond League events. Alongside Neeraj Chopra’s architectural perfection came Arshad Nadeem’s yawn-limber-jog-throw-yawn routine that sent a javelin the same distance as Germans with a body fat percentage lower than my chances of making it as a professional athlete. I want PV Sindhu to win but Tai Tzu-ying is a bloody artist on the court. And, I promise you, an Elaine Thompson-Herah or Shelly-Ann Fraser-Price run is as exhilarating an experience as a Lionel Messi dribble.

But the good thing about not being a nut is, I can detach myself anytime. Like with a distant friend one shares memes with, I don’t have the mental responsibility to keep up with regular updates. Fraser-Price will be running at the Paris Olympics next year, I’ll just catch her then.

Right now, my mind is occupied by these names: Anush Agarwalla, Sudipti Hajela, Divyakriti Singh and Hriday Chheda. These four have won the gold medal in Equestrian Dressage at the ongoing Asian Games in Hangzhou. For context - India hasn't won an Asian Games gold in equestrian in 41 years, and any medal in 37. The Indian team didn’t even know if it was participating until the last minute. It took the Delhi High Court’s intervention to send their entries.

I wonder if the Indian Olympic Association will organise a ceremony for the medal winners from Hangzhou. The Asian Games doesn't generate decibel levels comparable to the Olympics or even the Commonwealth Games, but this is an era of loud optics, so there is hope. Alongside the importance of honouring their incredible achievement, there is also the mouth-watering possibility of watching the Indian administration at its, erm, best.

Olympic medallists and Indian athletes found in their natural habitat. (Photo credit: Umesh Kumar/News18 photo)

Here’s a sample. 2008 seems a lifetime ago in Indian sports. It was an age of muted hopes and deriving joy from finding a number other than 0 on the medal tally next to India's name. Seemingly out of nowhere, Abhinav Bindra won a gold. There was something neat about the progression from Leander Paes, Karnam Malleshwari, and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore’s returns from the previous three Olympics. A gold, still, was wild. A few weeks later, the Indian Olympic Association organised a grand evening to celebrate. Its then-chief, Suresh Kalmadi, held the mic to call over the most popular name on Indian news wires at the time. His first few words went thus: “Congratulations to Abhi...Abhil…Avinash!”

But before Bindra, there was Anjali Bhagwat. She paved the path on which Gagan Narang and Abhinav Bindra sprinted. At a time when Indian shooting was more aspirational than ambitious, she was winning multiple medals at SAF events. Having warmed up with a bucketload of golds and records at three consecutive SAF championships, Bhagwat took flight as the millennium turned. At the 1999 Commonwealth Championships, she won three golds and a silver; at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, she reached the final; in 2001, she won five golds at the Commonwealth Championships. There was a gold medal at the ISSF World Cup sandwiched somewhere in there. World number one. The first Indian to achieve any of these things.

Fun fact: she almost didn't make it to the Sydney Olympics, sneaking in only thanks to a last-minute wildcard entry along with Bindra. What should’ve been the final barrier was just the first pebble on a broken road. Speaking to ESPN, she says, “Back then there was barely any awareness and understanding of the sport and its requirements. One of the clerks at the DGsP (Maharashtra Police) thought I was talking about shooting a movie. Police clearance was needed and airlines too were struggling with the concept of allowing passengers to carry pellets. I couldn't manage to get it done in time and eventually landed in Sydney for my first Olympics without ammunition.”

Mentoring her through this time was Hungarian coach Laszlo Szucsak, a miracle worker within Indian shooting through the 90s. At the Sydney Olympics, he took her to an ammunition factory to get her a sponsor and competitive gear. Bhagwat’s performance, landing her a final berth, should’ve been the catalyst for the Sports Authority of India (SAI) to invest heavily into her career and infrastructure for other shooters. Instead, when Bhagwat and Szucsak landed in Mumbai, they were informed that Szucsak’s contract, expiring that summer, had not been extended. At the 2004 Athens Olympics, she was the only shooter without a coach.

Deprivation is a central theme in Indian sports. It is almost as if the administrators think of it as the only way athletes improve. In 1952, KD Jadhav won India’s first-ever individual medal in the Olympics. Even if you account for the austerity of a young nation, dominant displays at multiple Asian Games and Commonwealth Games thereafter should’ve led to a healthy ecosystem for wrestling. It took until 1979 for a private akhada - a wrestling compound - to get a mat. The next one came in 1992. Across the country, there were less than ten mats at government-run training centres. Forty years between an Olympic medal and basic equipment to compete. And the infection doesn’t stop at equipment alone.

There is a funny moniker that started doing the rounds among Indian Olympic athletes around that time and has stuck since. The physios and doctors that SAI assigns to these Olympic training centres are called khaasi ka doctor by the athletes, directly translating to a general physician who cures cough and cold. Heath Matthews is a South African physio who worked with Indian athletes, through a non-profit organisation, for a couple of years. In Rudraneil Sengupta’s incredible book from 2016, Matthews says, “I would not send a common man with a common injury to these guys, forget elite athletes.” These are physios who are supposed to treat gymnasts and weightlifters, people who dedicate half their lives to rehab and recovery.

This entire dressage team, soon to be feted by ministers and administrators, has been training in remote European villages with peanuts for resources. About 18 months ago, Divyakriti Singh’s father, Vikram, sold his family home in Jaipur to fund her training. According to him, the families of each of the other three riders have spent between Rs 3 to 5 crores.

Are you on your mark? (Photo credit: Olympics)

The men’s football team, the toast of the nation not too long ago, after winning three international tournaments in a short span, crashed out in the round of sixteen. It isn’t anything alarming, given their opponents on the evening were Saudi Arabia, one of Asia’s best and victors against eventual champions Argentina at the 2022 FIFA World Cup. But did they have a chance, given that they arrived in Hangzhou a day before their first group game, with a set of players that had never, not once, trained together? Drawing the game against Myanmar and qualifying for the knockouts is an achievement in itself.

Coach Igor Stimac, who might soon leave for Bosnia and Herzegovina, was scathing. “Big lesson from this tournament is - Don't send us anywhere if we can't get our best players to represent the country. Also, do not send us anywhere if you can provide time for us to work and prepare well. We were here exposed while representing India. We took it well and the Indian fans can be proud of these boys who came here unprepared and without having played a single training session together,” he told RevSportz.

I wish Netflix could make a docu-series on Indian sports, Drive To Survive-style. An episode each for every family of sports culminating with an hour-long feature on those who sit at the top of the food chain. The opening shot can just be borrowed from the Team India campaign for the Asian Games, where the star of the show Nita Ambani has more screen time than accessories like Sindhu, PR Sreejesh and Tejaswin Shankar. I don’t think they’ll be allowed to fully air an episode on the corruption that floods most sports and athletes in India, but if they hire good enough writers, maybe they can hide it under metaphors and creative cinematography. Indian administrators aren’t the brightest bulbs in any room.

This week, barring unforeseen circumstances, Neeraj Chopra will land a medal. Possibly gold, but definitely on the podium. There is an air of inevitability about him, even as he lifts his javelin from the rack, which is crazy when you think he is just 25. Tendulkar-esque. Nikhat Zareen, similarly, has made a habit of landing a medal every time she enters an event. She has kept her record intact at Hangzhou and will still be in contention for the gold by the time this gets published.

These stories become props at speeches and events, to illustrate investment in sports. The number of medals India will expect to win at Paris next year is exponentially higher than the number they would have dreamt of at, say, Athens. Isn’t that what development – vikas – looks like? Every time that question pops up, there is a statistic to remember. I flip through my notes from Sengupta’s book to find it. Here: India’s position on the medals table at London, Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo was 57th, 67th, and 48th respectively. When adjusted for economy or GDP, India sits at the bottom. Comfortably, consistently.

A week into the Asian Games, the Indian contingent sits in fourth place on the medals table, behind China, Japan, and South Korea. With 38 medals and counting, they’re more than halfway through to the all-time best of 70 that they returned with from the previous edition. Each of these medals owes more to private investors and non-profit organisations, like Olympic Gold Quest, than the government-managed IOA or SAI.

In a couple of weeks, as the athletes start recovering from jet lag and unpack their kit bags, many will line up to take credit for their recent achievements. The giant hoardings at felicitation ceremonies, if there are any, will have equally giant images of influential ministers and administrators. Hidden somewhere in the corner will be Divyakriti Singh and Co. - history makers, achievers, but sideshows in the story of Indian sports.

The story is written, produced, and directed by those who claim to be fans. It has always been. Don’t worry, no one even pretends to be a nut.

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For this piece, I have borrowed stories from the work of stellar journalists. I have linked all the sources in the article itself, but putting a list here, just in case you’d like to spend an afternoon reading about the kind of muck Indian sports has been trapped in for decades.

• Sharda Ugra’s piece from 2012

• Susan Ninan speaks to Anjali Bhagwat

• Interview with Shiva Keshavan, 2014

• Mihir Vasavda reporting from Hangzhou

  • His story on the Equestrian Dressage team

• Andrew Amsan’s story on an IAS Officer who closed off an athletics stadium to walk his dog

• Rudraneil Sengupta’s book, Enter The Dangal

• Deepti Patwardhan on India’s sports ecosystem