How can India meet China’s medal count by the 2024 Olympics?

 

By Aditi Mittal

 

“Kheloge kudoge to honge kharab, padhoge likhoge to banoge nawab”: this popular Hindi quote captures the essence of the Indian mind-set toward sports. If this is what is preached in an average Indian home, then India, which makes up 17.8 percent of the world’s population, has a long way to go to meet China’s medal count by the 2024 Olympics.

 

India may be a country with 1.2 billion people that has mammoth potential, but it has a low “effective participating population” due to a number of acute problems.

 

At the government level, there is severe policy paralysis, lack of sports infrastructure, favoritism in athlete and coach selection, rampant corruption, meager fund allocation, and misuse of budgets. And at the grassroots level, there is nutrition deficiency, lack of awareness and economic incentives for sports, overemphasis on cricket, poor media coverage, insufficient encouragement from parents and school, and, most important, uncertainty.

 

As per the statistics, of the total 962 medals to be won at London Olympics 2012, India competed for only 68 medals (7 percent) and won 6 medals (8.8 percent of medals for which it competed).

 

There seems to be a colossal structural problem rising from the grassroots level all the way up to higher-level values and beliefs. With unchecked corruption evident in the organization of the Commonwealth Games, can government be given sole responsibility for leading India toward Olympic medals wins? Can nongovernment bodies independently stand up for the country’s pride at the Olympics? The answers seem more negative than positive.

 

The problem has three tiers: funding the creation and operations of physical infrastructure, creating awareness and providing incentives, and ensuring effective and transparent governance linking the government and nongovernment organizations.

 

The approach to make India shine at the Olympics has to be formal, focused, results oriented, and sustainable, aimed at creating a complete ecosystem for the athlete’s personal and professional development. The requisite efforts for such a focused initiative need to evolve gradually, as the roadblocks to attain success are immense and diverse. The long-term vision should be to create self-sustainable sports cities in an environment of transparency, passion, determination, and the will to excel.

 

One potential mechanism could be the government creating a world-class sports academy to provide training infrastructure as per international sporting standards. An informed decision needs to be taken on the number of sports that India needs to participate in at Olympics, which will be a function of elements such as the number of medals in a given sport, the ease of facility creation and provision, the level of awareness and interest, past performance in the sport, and the ability to convert potential into winning performance.

 

The academy can be constructed through a public-private partnership, in which the private entity is given incentive through tax benefits and special-economic-zone allocations, while the government is ensured of a constant stream of funds. The academy should be equipped with world-class physical equipment and infrastructure, and athletes should have access to the finest coaches, nutritionists, dieticians, physiotherapists, mental trainers, sparring partners, masseurs, and so on. Continual global benchmarking should be undertaken to ensure physical infrastructure excellence and conformity with sporting regulations.

 

The creation of infrastructure is futile unless we are able to attract the right sporting talent and ensure proper governance. This facility should function like a corporate organization, in which each sport acts as a separate department and each athlete performs like an employee.

 

Through a transparent auction, each sport should be given as a “baby” to a corporate, HNI, or nongovernment organization that will be responsible for the development of the sport and for bringing about result-oriented performance. The auctions should be based on the willingness and ability of the “sport owners” to fund the sport, managerial potential, national standing, brand, a detailed action plan, and meritorious performance (if bidding for consecutive years). The process should be repeated in a four-year cycle. The sport owners can be provided incentive through mechanisms such as tax benefits, subsidies, cash compensation for every international medal win, and branding and promotion opportunities at all government-organized district- and state-level athletic competitions. The government can in turn form a committee and independently monitor these sport owners for performance and compliance.

 

The next step would be to create awareness and interest in sports so as to attract athletes. To move in this direction, sports need to be incorporated into academic curriculum from class one, including both physical training and theoretical knowledge, with material incentives such as grants to schools with outstanding athlete turnout. Summer camps should be organized at district and state levels in association with local clubs, sporting schools, and youth organizations. Current international-level winners from India should be respected, compensated with money and job security, and positioned

in ways that allow them to become role models for aspiring athletes. National and regional celebrities need to be given incentive to be associated with the academy and entrusted with activities for promoting each of the sports. An annual television program on the lines of Indian Idol or Kaun Banega Crorepati could help identify existing talent and attract the public with awards.

 

Building on awareness, we need to attract talented people, screen them for admission to the academy, and give them incentive to do their best at all times.

 

Screening can use two tiers: on one hand, the government could organize mandatory sporting events at district and state levels, with cash prizes and scholarships, and on the other hand, the academy could determine independent thresholds for each sport. Admission to the academy would be offered to winners and to people meeting or crossing the threshold. Some qualitative measures such as dedication and exposure should also be included to ensure capability and consistency.

 

The athletes should be inducted into the academy as employees with performance-based pay, free education, job opportunities, medical insurance, and PF/gratuity facilities to give them economic security and contentment. Some recreational opportunities and vocational training may be offered to make the sport more engaging and balanced. As employees, athletes should be appraised biannually to review progress and identify training needs.

 

The ecosystem may not be complete unless the athletes’ parents are a part of it. To ensure encouragement and support, parents can be offered incentives such as relocation allowances or free education for a sibling. If parents

do not support the sporting opportunity for the child, all other efforts will be in vain.

 

The entire system should be transparent and a point of national pride. Success stories, rich experiences, and achievements must be made public. Implementation of incentive offerings for each stakeholder will be crucial for the functioning of this system. The system must be flexible to incorporate change and scale up in size with experience and learning. And  the long-term focus should be to tackle issues at their roots, for example, by ensuring proper nutrition, creating more awareness of sports, building proper infrastructure, reducing corruption, and providing proper governance.

 

China started “Project 119,” aiming to win the 119 gold medals available in the events in which the country participated; the United Kingdom started its lottery funding; the United States used its college-sports mechanism to increase Olympic wins. Can India not create its “Kaun Banenge Olympic Champions”?

 

Can we not replicate such an academy and create clubs to give birth to an “Athletic IPL”? It’s time to wake up the nation, educate people, create a movement, determine targets, execute plans, cross barriers, and march toward winning at the Olympics.