COLUMN: India need private sector help in launching sports academies.
NEW YORK: India’s debacle at the Rio Olympics and its bleak future in Tokyo four years down – bar for a trio of women competitors, two of whom managed to medal, saved the blushes for the country, and already being touted as the best hope in the next edition – is not impossible to decipher like the Voynich manuscript, the confounding, illustrated book in codex yet to be cracked, lying in a vault at Yale University.
There’s hope yet for the Voynich manuscript, as an Italian publisher will soon bring out copies of the book; more code crackers can strive to unravel its myriad mysteries.
So, what about India, the land of 1.3 billion people who are embarrassed every four years at the Olympics, squirm with the reality of the likes of small, impoverished nations like Fiji and Venezuela doing better in medal standings?
Is India ever going to find a panacea for its dismal failure at top international sporting competitions, apart from cricket? Can the country expect some badly-needed succor from the self-denial its citizens go through for a fortnight every four years, virtually forced to shroud themselves mentally in the tricolor, desperately seek solace in a misplaced sense of patriotism? Try to banish thoughts of living in a country who are not world beaters, not to affix that depressing reality to their overall sense of achievement in the global sphere?
The inclination would be to say no immediately, that some endeavors are as futile as sending mail to your sweetheart by magic carpet. But one could also take some pause. Reflect on the possibility that perhaps, there is change ushering in, a new sense of reality has seeped in, with the Rio Games.
Especially, since the concept of a private academy, like that run by Pullela Gopichand, the dedicated coach of silver medalist shuttler PV Sindhu, may soon start to mushroom and flourish, spread to several individual disciplines, and cities across India. Earlier, the Britannia Amritraj Tennis academy could be credited for launching the career of Leander Paes.
The vexatious issue of why such academies are not, in fact, blossoming at a faster pace and across disciplines where India has a chance to notch some medals is hard to understand. Of course, investors have been hard to come by, the returns meager, in the past. But Gopichand’s achievement this month may just change all of that.
On the academic front, though, India continue to debut some quality institutions, like the innovative Ashoka University, in Haryana, with its ties to Ivy League schools in the US; and Bennett University, in Uttar Pradesh. But, it just doesn’t seem to have the temerity to inculcate new, dynamic sports-oriented colleges and universities, or grant full sports scholarships to top universities, on the lines of US schools which is the backbone of churning out Olympic and world champions.
Yet, there has always been intense speculation and curiosity about sports talent in India, from American scouts, ranging from baseball to basketball. Tennis and golf too have emerged as a haven for full scholarships to universities in the US. It’s a wonder why more shooters (India’s top medal-getter four years ago at the London Olympics; zilch this time) and badminton players are not flying (or fleeing) overseas, to hone their skills. After all, a rich payday awaits them if they medal for India, as is evident from the crores of rupees in cash and gifts being heaped upon Sindhu.
In the past, two Indian players, Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel, won the ‘Million Dollar Arm’ competition in 2008, around the time of the Beijing Olympics, for lucrative contracts in minor league baseball in the US. Both are now back in India, though. The tennis player Somdev Devvarman is still revered in the US, as being the only collegiate player to have made three consecutive finals at the NCAA; his 44–1 win-loss record in 2008 at the NCAA men’s tennis championship playing for the University of Virginia is unprecedented. But he is not faring great on the international circuit at present, since he left the US. He didn’t get to represent India at the Rio Olympics. Basketball is looking to India as a future partner, in promoting the sport widely.
Much has been written about the paucity of money in Indian sports, the one big villain in playing spoil sport for the country. It doesn’t make for pretty reading the fact that the total annual budgetary outlay of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports for the year 2014-15 was approximately Rs. 800 crore; the Indian Olympic Association received a grant of only around Rs. 20 crore for the year 2014-15.
To put this into proper perspective: India spends around $0.005 per head on sports each day, against $0.30 for the U.S. UK, in general, spends $1.5 billion (Rs. 9,000 crore) on annual sports infrastructure and training. It spent about $350 million on Olympics preparation over four years (2013-2017). It spent $7 million on a medal. In comparison, India spent $9000 per athlete every year in the run-up to Olympics, on a total of potential 109 Olympic athletes. So, essentially India invested $36,000 on a single medal preparation.
UK ramped up its Olympic spending after the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, where it won one gold medal. In the US, more than 100 athletes started individual funding portals for donations from the general public. Only 10 percent of the US Olympic committee’s finances are actually spent on athletes, noted the Guardian. The US topped the Rio medals tally.
For India, its priorities should be clear, with a goal of achieving glory in the 2024 Olympics: start plenty of private academies in several disciplines with the help of the private sector, and even public-private partnerships. The government should allocate more funds annually for top notch prospects, get them world-class facilities, including coaches. It’s ridiculous that the government doesn’t provide money to buy shoes for their Olympic-bound athletes. The athletes have to beg for donations from private funders.
As a WhatsApp and social media joke that was widely circulated this week said: ‘the UK has sports stadiums every 5 miles. India has temples every 2 miles. India doesn’t play to win. They pray to win.’
That perhaps is the core of the problem, apart from the horrible political bungling and red tape that exists in sports bodies across India. The lack of facilities at the grassroots level. There’s still hope though, as Pullela Gopichand has demonstrated. He’s become as large a figure with Sindhu’s silver achievement, and before that Nehwal’s bronze clinch in London, as the coach of the Rocky movies starring Sylvester Stallone.
One can only hope that Gopichand’s blueprint will spur India to achieve more on the Olympic front.
(Sujeet Rajan is Editor-in-Chief, The American Bazaar. Follow him @SujeetRajan1).