Coming to think of it, for all the disappointment of not winning a medal, it was a most creditable performance by a girl of her limited experience. Usha took up the event six months earlier and this was her first taste of international competition. Before taking the plane to Los Angeles she had competed in only two big hurdles races in India, the Bombay Open meet and the pre-Olympic trials. Her own state, Kerala, had objected to her entry when she first wished to try her hand at the event in the Inter-State meet in New Delhi…An Olympic medal would have been a great reward for a girl who has dominated Indian athletics for half a decade… When coach Nambiar introduced her to hurdling he had predicted a place in the final for her. Perhaps Usha herself had not expected to win a medal.47
She may not have won the Olympic medal but she inspired an extraordinary rise of women athletes from Kerala—Shiny Wilson, M.D. Valsamma, Molly Chacko and Mercy Kuttan. The trend coincided with a concentrated focus on athletics by the Kerala Sports Council during that period.48
No history of Indian sport can be complete without an elegy to the grit and determination of Leander Paes. In an age of instant stardom for even the worst performers in the national cricket team, Leander has soldiered on, relatively unsung. This chapter began by noting how his Olympic bronze in 1996 became the cause of nationalist celebration in sharp contrast to K.D. Jadhav’s bronze in the 1952 which did not even merit a front page mention in the newspapers. Leander Paes has won Grand Slam after Grand Slam (in doubles), beating far higher ranked opponents while representing the country in the Asian Games, the Olympics and the Davis Cup. When he won his Olympic medal in 1996, he ended a 44-year individual medal drought for India.
Yet Paes continues to inspire, to amaze, to startle, and to top it all continues to win laurels for the nation with amazing regularity. At Atlanta, as a rank outsider and hardly a medal contender at the start of the tournament, he finished third because of his never-say-die attitude and unparalleled patriotism, which helped him psyche himself up and raise his game to a level he has never matched again. Rohit Brijnath, one of India’s finest sport writers, beautifully captures the magic of the player:
Everyone who has watched Leander Paes play has a story. Mine is corny. In 20 years of sports writing, no player has done what he did to me. On the day in Atlanta at the 1996 Olympics, as he battled stuttering form to win bronze, the strangest thing happened. I cried.
It wasn’t just because a nation of a billion had been tired of mediocrity, had been waiting so long, 44 years at that point, for one more individual Olympic medal, just to show we belonged, to feel briefly empowered.
It was more than that. You cared because he cared. Because he was technically defective, and too short, and his game too high risk, but he’d fight every flaw, he’d front every challenge, he’d tilt wildly at windmills.
This was not a great player by any stretch…But somehow he’d manage to transcend his averageness when his nation’s flag flew.
He’d move you because when he played for India he did that simplest of things. He tried.49
It has often been suggested that Leander is an average tennis player who reaches another level when he dons India colours. While on the one hand this is meant as praise—he continues to remain patriotic after 22 years of the professional grind—on the other, it dwarfs all his other achievements: 11 Grand Slam titles, which, to remind us all, have helped reinstate India on the world tennis map. If Andre Agassi could play the US Open all through his career as an American, play before his ‘home’ crowd and make them weep and dance at the same time, what makes us feel Leander only plays the Davis Cup or the Olympics for India and all other tournaments for himself?
For the record, it is almost impossible to follow men’s doubles tennis action from India. All our sports channels are de facto cricket channels, for that’s what sells in the country. Even if tennis is shown, it is generally the singles. The only way to keep tabs on Leander and Mahesh Bhupathi’s exploits on the circuit therefore is to follow the live score on the internet. And if one downloads the point tracker onto one’s desktop, it is a unique experience. You can hardly blink, for if you do, you run the risk of missing a point.
When Leander beat Fernando Melligeni of Brazil in the battle for third place at Atlanta, the country was at first too stunned to react. Finally, the medal drought had ended. But the true sportsman in Leander did not want to ride high on his achievements and come back to India to bask in Olympic glory. Rather, he stayed back in the US for a while to improve on his rankings, allowing the somewhat superficial euphoria to die down a little. His reaction after winning the bronze is yet another tribute to his sportsmanship. ‘It’s just amazing how things can happen with a little bit of effort. And that’s really been my story at the Olympics. I’ve just been putting in effort match after match, point after point…Even on Saturday I was down a set. I was really nervous this morning. I guess the 44 years and 16 years that we have not won a medal was getting to me. It took a while to get over my nerves out there. The effort paid off in the end.’50
Interestingly, Paes, who had entered the Atlanta Olympics as a wildcard entry, praised the role played by his coach Jaideep Mukherjea and then doubles partner Mahesh in propelling him to Olympic glory. ‘Bhupathi skipped one week of ATP tour play to stay with me and give me encouragement. I am very grateful for the gesture.’51
Table 11.1
Paes on His Way to the Bronze Medal
Ist Round—Beat Richie Reneberg who ultimately retired due to a hamstring injury.
2nd Round—Beat Nicolas Pereira of Venezuela 6–2, 6–3
3rd Round—Beat 3rd seed Thomas Enquist of Sweden 7–5, 7–6
Quarter final—Beat Renzo Furlan of Italy 6–1, 7–5
Semi-final—Lost to top seed Andre Agassi of the US 6–7, 3–6
Bronze medal play-off—Beat Fernando Meligeni of Brazil 3–6, 6–2, 6–4
FINALLY A FEMALE OLYMPIC MEDALLIST
For Karnam Malleswari, the Sydney Olympic Games of 2000 will always be a reverie that came true. It was at Sydney that she re-wrote the history books, becoming in the process the first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal. For the record, Malleswari won a bronze medal in the 69 kg category. This was her first international meet in the 69 kg division after moving up from her usual 63 kg class. At Sydney, she lifted a total of 240 kg—110 kg in snatch and 130 kg in clean and jerk, to end up behind China’s Lin Weining and Hungary’s Erzsebet Markus who won gold and silver respectively. Soon after her victory, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee hailed her performance as ‘a tribute to Indian womanhood’.
As is typical with Indian sport, her trip to Sydney was in jeopardy until the very last minute. The choice of the women’s weightlifting team had been mired in controversy and Malleswari even ran the risk of missing out. On her return from Sydney, she made this stunning revelation in an interview:
I was even blackmailed (on the eve of the Games). Coach Mr Sandhu told me if there was a choice between Malli or Kunjarani [Devi] then I would be the one who would be forced out of the team, because Chanu was an automatic choice. We were all tense till the last minute. We had no idea as to what might happen the next moment. I did not know that the choice was between Sonamacha and Kunjarani. I believed what I was told…I had won two world medals, but it did not seem to count for those who were involved in the selection process. I was hurt when someone came and told me that Sonamacha was better than me. Of course, the whole thing was being orchestrated. I felt bad about it. This misinformation campaign was being carried on by one of the coaches.52
Trained by the Belarussian, Leonid Taranenkohe, Malleswari was only the third individual Indian medal winner.
For a lifter moving up from the 63 kg to 69 kg class and taking part in her first competition in this weight category, Malleswari far exceeded expectations. Her effort was all the more commendable because a leading magazine had dismissed her chances of a medal on the eve of the Games on the ground that she was overweight, drank beer and ate �
��too much’ chicken and cheese.
While one hoped that her medal winning performance was enough to silence all her critics, what was written soon after draws attention to the politicized nature of modern Indian sport: ‘Malleswari’s bronze medal winning performance in the weightlifting event at the Sydney Olympic Games deserves praise, but minus the hyperbole and media generated hysteria. A bronze is a bronze and even high praise cannot turn it into a silver or a gold.’53
RATHORE AND THE SILVER
Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore’s heroics at Athens have already been written about in the previous chapter. Suffice it to say here that the image of Rathore kissing his silver medal will forever remain a favourite picture postcard of the Indian sports fraternity across the country.
Happily for India, it is time to recognize that Rathore is only one of the most prominent of the many Indian shooters doing well now on the international circuit. With seven or more shooters in the top 20, India has transformed herself into a shooting powerhouse certainly in the Commonwealth, if not also in Asia.
However, as is always the story with Indian sports, Indian shooters found it hard to train for the Beijing Games, with the Sports Authority of India and the National Rifle Association locked in a war of words months before the Olympics. Each blamed the other for the lack of adequate ammunition for the shooters and the NRAI even went so far as to say that it was contemplating the drastic step of withdrawing India’s shooting contingent from the Games.54
Sadly for India, shooters continue to be denied financial help by their state sporting associations and this became a serious impediment as they trained for London. Gagan Narang, who had a great Commonwealth Games and is among the best India has on current form along with Ranjan Sodhi came to the rescue of his fellow teammates by providing first rate facilities at his academy in Pune.55
Yet, in the run-up to London, many observers agree that the Indian shooters stand a realistic chance of winning medals at Beijing, as do Vikas Krishnan and Jai Bhagwan in Boxing.56
It would be foolish to make predictions but one thing is certain: with sports capturing the nation’s imagination like nothing else, it is natural that the biggest sporting spectacle of all will enthrall the Indian sporting fraternity. This is because sport in India is no longer a vehicle for merely imagining the nation, but has become one by which to transcend the nation—to escape the troubled country and engage with the world on a level playing field.
12
Indian Sport on the Eve of London 2012
Will the turnaround finally happen?
The foundation was laid at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in October 2010.1 101 medals, 38 of which were gold, second in the medals table displacing England for the first time ever in history, Indian Olympic sports and sports persons had made a statement to the world. Critics, however, had drawn attention to the relatively lower level of competition at the Commonwealth Games2 and suggested that the real test was the Asian Games at Guangzhou in November 2010. And as India’s shooters achieved modest success at the Asian Games,3 the murmur was fast gathering strength. The CWG, the first week at Guangzhou had shown, was a false dawn. The national ritual celebrating failure was about to start and coupled with the CWG scams, which were, and still continues to be in focus, Indian sport was staring down the barrel.
But as with sport, conclusions should not be drawn till the last medal is actually won. India, which had one gold medal from Pankaj Advani in snooker to show at the end of the first week of competition at the Asian Games, suddenly came alive on 21 November 2010 to claim a further three. Ranjan Sodhi was on target in men’s double trap and Preeja Sreedharan and Sudha Singh gave millions of Indian sports fans reasons to celebrate as they raced to gold in the 10,000 metres and 3000 metres steeplechase. Suddenly, the Doha 2006 haul of ten gold medals looked achievable and with the boxers putting up a stunning show, their best ever at the Asian Games, the CWG success did not look a distant dream.
Just as in the Commonwealth Games where Saina Nehwal’s gold in badminton, India’s 38th and last, was more than a medal, at Guangzhou Vijender Singh’s gold, India’s 14th, shone brighter than its colour. Achieved with a broken thumb in the 75 kilogram category in boxing, it propelled India to an unprecedented sixth place in the medal standings and summed up the story of India’s athletes, fighting on despite administrative apathy and bureaucratic red tape at every step. London 2012, it is hoped, will allow these athletes to occupy centre stage and herald the start of a systemic overhaul in Indian sports that the nation is badly in need of and has been craving for years.
If the Asian Games was any indication, India, for the first time ever, can realistically expect 7 medals at London 2012,4 more than double from what India had won at Beijing. For the first time the world media was forced to publish headlines such as ‘China and India up, Japan down’, in summing up Asian Games performances in November 2010.
Talking about a possible Indian sporting renaissance at London, Indian Olympic Association Secretary General and India’s IOC member Randhir Singh suggests, ‘It’s a Catch-22 situation. You can’t produce champions without money, and money doesn’t come unless you have champions to flaunt.’5 Fortunately for Randhir and India’s moribund and deeply politicized sports bureaucracy, India now has a plethora of champions in multiple sporting disciplines to market and promote.
What should help in marketing these athletes is the fact that their achievements in Delhi and China were analysed for hours on television and turned them into national celebrities. That there is a perceptible change is evident from the coverage in the media, the harbingers of such change. In March-April 2009, leading lights of world badminton were in India to participate in the Indian Open tournament in Hyderabad. Around the same time, the Indian cricket team was playing New Zealand for a bilateral series in New Zealand. Even on the day of the Indian Open finals, coverage of the competition was relegated to the lower half of most sports pages across the country when items about India’s preparation for the third Test of the series in New Zealand was given eight-column banner headlines.6 This was startling because India now has a handful of players who have made it to the top twenty-five in world badminton. Saina Nehwal, India’s best bet for a medal at the Olympics and ranked fifth in the world, trailed off with the following lament: ‘A lot of cricket is happening … nobody wants to take it (badminton) up professionally. It is not easy to be ranked number eight or nine. A lot of sacrifices have to be made and still not many are ready to do that. So maybe once in ten years we will have a Saina Nehwal.’7
In a glaring departure from the reality described above, every Indian achievement at Delhi and then at Guangzhou was a first-page headline while India’s triumphs against Australia and New Zealand in cricket were relegated to the sports pages of the national dailies. A successful London 2012 and a sports culture will no longer be an illusion with India gradually starting to look beyond cricket and turning into a multi sporting nation.
POLITICS OVER THE NATIONAL SPORTS BILL:
RED TAPE PERSISTS
After much deliberation and careful consideration the Indian sports ministry presented the national sports bill before the Union Cabinet on 30 August 2011. The bill, which had taken years in coming, provoked much outrage among several members of the Union Cabinet and wasn’t allowed to be tabled before the members of Parliament. Sections of the bill were considered too radical and the sports minister was instructed to redraft the bill and place it once again at a subsequent date.8 The leading opponent of the bill was the Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar who is also the president of the International Cricket Council and a former president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
On losing the Board of Control for Cricket in India presidential election to Ranbir Singh Mahendra in September 2004 Pawar had famously said that he was helpless because ‘the bowler, umpire and the third umpire was the same person’.9 He was referring to his predecessor Jagmohan Dalmiya using the BCCI president’s vote in levelling the po
ll count and subsequently using his casting vote to get Mahendra elected. It was, Pawar suggested, ‘a classic case of conflict of interest’.10 Sharad Pawar, as mentioned above, is now one of the principal detractors of the National Sports Bill. As president of the ICC, he is an interested party and as Union Agriculture minister and former BCCI chief, Pawar, in this case, is the bowler and umpire rolled into one. His opposition to the bill is also a classic case of conflict of interest.
Cases of conflict of interest over the bill don’t end with Pawar. Farooq Abdulla, yet another senior member of the Union Cabinet and president of the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association, and Praful Patel, president of the All India Football Federation, are in the same league. It is natural that they would want to sink the bill for neither of them can debate it on merit as members of the Manmohan Singh Cabinet. While their opposition as sports czars is understandable, their challenging the bill from within the Union Cabinet is untenable.11
While there is little doubt that some of the concerns expressed on both sides, by the proponents and the detractors of the bill, were/are legitimate and tangible, far more problematic and far more significant, however, are the ego battles that were/are being fought around the bill. These games of one-upmanship are likely to have an adverse impact on the fortunes of Indian sport in the immediate future.
Unfortunately, the debates over the sports bill have hardly addressed the core concerns of transparency and accountability. The discussions are limited to the government trying to control the IOA and the Association doing its best to protect its autonomy. If there is one body that desperately needs to be made accountable it is the IOA. Its performance graph shows a consistent downward trend, natural in view of the gloom surrounding India’s Olympic sports scene for the longest time after independence in 1947. While India has won just one individual gold medal in its 88 years of participation at the Olympics, it did not win a single medal at Seoul in 1988 and again at Barcelona in 1992. The controversies surrounding the Commonwealth Games have badly dented the IOA’s image and its failure to organize the National Games in the last five years has had an adverse impact on Indian sport.
Olympics-The India Story Page 36
