India at the 2014 Commonwealth Games: Not as bad a performance as it looks

Sushil Kumar, Vinesh, Amit Kumar and Rajeev Tomar pose with their medals at the Glasgow CWG

2014 – Gold 15, Silver 30, Bronze 19; Total 64 – Overall 5th in the standings

2010 – Gold 38, Silver 27, Bronze 36; Total 101 – Overall 2nd in the standings

At first glance, it seems like a big drop in results over the four years. But if we go into the details, a more positive picture of the Indian sports scene emerges. The table below compares the discipline-wise performance of the Indian contingent at the recent Commonwealth Games held in Glasgow and the one held in Delhi four years ago.

E-Events; G-Gold; Silver; B-Bronze; T - Total; Diff - Change in total medals

A few key observations from the table:

1. Archery and tennis, which combined to bring 12 medals in Delhi, were dropped from the Glasgow roster and replaced by judo and triathalon, which brought four medals for India.
2. The number of events in shooting and wrestling were drastically reduced. 57 events, which brought in 49 medals in Delhi, became 33 events bringing in 30 medals. So it was a better proportion overall.
3. Athletics had a major climbdown from 12 to just 3. Here the quality of participants changed drastically from Delhi. There were fewer big names from other countries pulling out of competition in Glasgow as compared to Delhi.
4. Table tennis was another event which went down, with the haul reducing from 5 to 1. The Chinese players representing other countries in the table tennis arena are hurting India badly now.
5. Boxing is becoming an area of concern. There is a visible slide in the results now. There were no gold medals this time, and a reduced overall haul should be a sign that the boxing team, though still good, needs to pull up its socks.
6. Weightlifting has shown quite an improvement. Hopefully there would be an end to the multiple doping scandals of the past which had earlier led to India being banned from international competitions.
7. India got its first ever medal in squash and that too a gold. Good signs.
8. We now have India's first ever female medallist in gymnastics, something which couldn't even have been imagined till Delhi 2010.
9. Even the lawn bowls team reached a bronze medal face-off, though they lost at the very end.
10. The higher number of silvers against golds should be an area of concern, specially with regard to the number of losses suffered in the finals. A lack of finishing touch or just a one-off case?

The Commonwealth Games in Delhi may have been marred by lots of corruption allegations, but they did raise the profile of the other sportspersons (i.e. all non-cricket athletes) in India. Also factor in the IOA being suspended for quite some time in the last two years. So all things considered, it was not too bad a result for Indian sports overall.

A better indicator of the progress will come at the Asian Games in Incheon later this year.