Forty years ago, I was at the Los Angeles Olympic games.
A two-member Indian men’s weightlifting team landed at the Olympic Village at the University of Southern California two weeks before the games to acclimatise and train at the venue. Both the lifters were heralded as potential medal prospects. The Games started. The weightlifting event was scheduled at the beginning of the Games. The weighing-in was on. One of the weightlifters was found to be overweight by 2 kilograms. The question rose as to how come he was overweight. The response from the lifter was simple. There was no coach or support system to monitor him on weight management. The coach of the weightlifting team had checked into the Village and quietly left for San Francisco the very next day, to visit his relatives. On his return two weeks later, on the day of the weighing-in, he could do nothing to help the overweight lifter qualify. The contingent management showed no remorse and the coach went scot-free. There was no inquiry, no blame game.
At the same Olympics, the legendary P.T. Usha missed an Olympic medal by a whisker, one-hundredth of a second. The whole of India wept. Many explanations came on what went wrong with Usha’s strategy for the race. The US athletics team coach who was keenly following Usha’s race (Usha had beaten American Judy Brown in the semifinals) and was sitting next to me in the athletes’ enclosure had this to say about Usha when she crossed the finish lane, “Look at the girl, she looks so fresh, she can complete another lap”. What he meant was that Usha still had more energy left in her, which, if used, could have fetched her an Olympic medal. This is where sports science can make a difference. Unfortunately, neither Usha nor her illustrious coach O.M. Nambiar had received any sports science back-up then.
Also read: Why Did We Perform so Poorly at the Paris Olympics?
This is exactly where Usha as president of Indian Olympic Association could have made a difference while selecting the contingent for the recently concluded Paris Olympic Games. The athletes had the luxury of having the services of sports medicine doctors, physiotherapists, massage therapists, mental trainers, nutritionists and sleep therapists. It is being speculated that the IOA had compulsions to take care of the interest of corporate sponsors and thus included inexperienced professionals in the squad which subsequently proved disastrous, with India landing at 71st position in the medals tally, below even Pakistan.
India on the medal tally sheet of the Paris Olympics.
As the badminton icon Prakash Padukone, as well as Usha herself pointed out, the onus of giving one’s best ultimately rests with the athlete. Tennis ace Leander Paes once said, “I can guarantee optimum performance, but not the results”. This applies to our Olympic contingent athletes too. Unfortunately, in the present Olympic games, our athletes not only failed to deliver their best, but what we saw was an abject surrender to opponents. Often, the winner takes the gold and some of those beaten share silver and bronze medals. Those who are hungry for glory do not care for the metal in their medals. There were 329 gold medals at stake at the Paris games across 32 sports and 48 disciplines. India drew a zero on the gold count and had to be satisfied with its haul of one silver and five bronze medals after spending Rs 470 crores in preparing and sending a team.
Since it is taxpayers’ money which is spent on these games, the IOA and sports ministry need to constitute an inquiry committee which will come out with a detailed report on how and where we have flopped at the Paris Olympic Games.
On August 29, the nation celebrated National Sports Day. Those who shouted at the top of their voices about our glorious performance at the Paris Olympics may not be aware that the national flags of 62 countries were hoisted 329 times, accompanied by their national anthems, to celebrate gold medal winners at various venues. But we, unfortunate Indians, could not get a glimpse of our tricolour fluttering at the top of the flag mast even once.
It is surprising that we still think of bidding to host the Olympic games.
Dr P.S.M. Chandran is former director of sports sciences at the Sports Authority of India. He has been an Indian contingent doctor for the Olympics and Asian Games. At present he is the president of the Indian Federation of Sports Medicine.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
