Yes we can

Yes we can

Asiad medal winners must aim to catch up with Olympic standards in two years.

India achieved its best ever medal tally at the Asian Games, marginally bettering the 65 medal haul in the 2010 Asiad with the athletics contingent notching its best performance in decades. There is fresh optimism that India can leap from Jakarta towards a better performance at the 2020 Olympics. Athletes like Hima Das, Neeraj Chopra and Jinson Johnson and boxer Amit Panghal have stormed their way into the national imagination and in style. Ensuring these precious talents are supported at the scale that the West reserves for their champion athletes shouldn’t be difficult for India at this point.

Admittedly, the East Asian giants don’t count track events among their strengths. But it is notable that Indian athletes pulled off some impressive performances against the African imports of Arab nations. The range of Indian medal winning performances across disciplines is heartening. Some of the wins – like Swapna Burman’s triumph in heptathlon with a strapped jaw and 800 metre champ Manjit Singh written off as past his prime by an ex-employer in 2016 – are also about the human spirit overcoming adversity. These champions and their inspirational stories uplift a nation counting desperately on a demographic dividend for its swelling youth population.

It is critical to sustain these gains and scale up further to meet world standards. Nothing exemplifies this more than failures in traditional Indian strengths like weightlifting, kabaddi, hockey and wrestling. The competition is constantly improving: look no further than kabaddi where Iran stung complacent Indian sides. This is where sports administration needs empathy for players, passion, vision and dexterity. But career politicians have muscled their way into sports federations and turned them into personal fiefdoms despite priorities that lie elsewhere.

An air of insecurity pervades sporting careers in India, and injuries aren’t the sole reason. There is a need to cast the net wider. PSU support for winners was critical in an earlier era but is inadequate today. Government’s Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) in which 196 sportspersons are getting financial/technical assistance and professionally run private initiatives like Olympic Gold Quest and GoSports Foundation have promise. Many sportspersons are from humble backgrounds and talent spotting and funding initiatives must start at school level itself. The Olympics is two years away and this batch of Asiad winners must not leave it to another crop to make a mark on the world stage.