The Athletics Drought By V. M. de Malar vmingoa at gmail.com
It's no fun being an Indian sports fan; our athletes fall flat when they compete with the best in the world. The cricket team has some of the best players anywhere, but always underachieves; Tendulkar's generation of record- breaking batsmen has not managed to bring home the World Cup. We have bright spots in tennis and golf, and Sania Mirza is a delightfully spunky young woman, but we don't figure in the top rankings unless you count the Fijian NRI, Vijay Singh. In track and field, despite Anju Bobby George's occasional heroics, we're nowhere. In swimming, in gymnastics, in football and basketball, we're nowhere. India is a standing joke of world sports, one billion people who are regularly out-medaled by pipsqueak nations like Lithuania and Trinidad. This long, painful, record is backdrop at the 18th Commonwealth Games, in Melbourne this week. Our country sent a huge contingent of 249 athletes, the aim is to improve India's positive trajectory at these Games. We went from eighth place ( 25 total medals) in 1998 to fourth place (69 total medals, with 30 golds) at Manchester in 2002. And since the next Commonwealth Games are scheduled for New Delhi, in 2010, there is official interest in building momentum so that India will make a decent showing on our own soil. We'll soon know whether the effort paid off, whether Indian sportsmen can finally start to shake off the reputation we've established for being the world's worst athletes. The woeful tradition bothers every competitive Indian; it's drawn the ire and energies of the empire-building NRI icon, Laskhmi Mittal. This boyish-looking resident of London has conquered the world's steelmaking arena; he's amassed a formidable global conglomerate and ticked up the rankings of the world's richest. Recently, our Man of Steel bid for his mammoth European competitor, Arcelor, and if the controversial deal comes through he will control the industry's playing field like few have ever managed. Understandably, Mittal is ticked off that his countrymen are so abysmally uncompetitive in sports, and so he has instituted the laudable Mittals Champions Trust, with 40 crores in funding. It will focus on coaching and guidance for young Indians with world- beating potential, a good start for a promising future. It's not that we don't have talent, or what it takes to get to the winner's podium. Goa's own Leander Paes has shown us what can be accomplished with single-minded drive and a belief in one's abilities; he's taken his international tennis career much further than any of his coaches and childhood friends ever imagined, all the way to half a dozen Grand Slam doubles titles and a glorious Olympic medal. His attitude is what sets Paes apart; he's relentlessly aggressive and up-beat. It's this tenacious character that has earned him a reputation as one of the world's great doubles players; he's eagerly sought out by greats like Martina Navratilova. Goa has produced other champions, most notably Kenya's famous "Gazelle", Seraphino Antao. In 1962, the Mombasa-born Goan dominated the Commonwealth Games at Perth, winning a "golden double" of 100 and 200 metres short sprints. Along with Kipchoge (Kip) Keino, Antao laid the foundations for a magnificent Kenyan running tradition. It's interesting to note that Kenya now completely dominates distance running on the world stage, but our Goan lad's medals remain the only ones ever won by a Kenyan for the shorter sprints, and the first ever in international competition. For an example of what can be achieved for a nation's athletics in a short time, we need look no further than neighboring China. It was as woeful as India at athletics, for equally understandable reasons. But national priorities changed, and the government shifted a great deal of focus to the sporting arena. And China has steadily risen up the world rankings, they now dominate regional athletics and compete head-to-head with established athletics powers like the USA, Russia and Germany. At the last Olympics, we witnessed the surreal sight of an Asian man whipping past the American and Caribbean sprinters in the finals of a major running event. Liu Xiang won the 110 metres hurdles with a final kick that no one imagined he had. Indian sports fans felt a familiar twinge; we've been waiting forever, when will we witness the emergence of our own athletics champion? (ENDS) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The above article appeared in the March 14, 2006 edition of the Herald, Goa --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ABOUT THE AUTHOR: VM is an early Goanetter, who put his money where his mouth is and returned to settle-down in Goa in late 2004, while in his thirties. VM regularly writes for the Goa and Mumbai media. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
