Olympics and India - A story of hope and miracles

Twenty six medals (9 gold, 6 silver and 11 bronze medals) – this is not the medals tally of a country in one Olympics. Sadly, this is India’s overall medals tally in all the Olympics combined, spanning over a hundred years. Compare this with a few other countries to put it into perspective: USA won 29 and Russia won 32 bronze medals in the 2012 London Olympics alone. In the same Olympics, an all-time best performance of 6 medals was not even enough for India to finish in the top 50 (eventually finishing in 55th place) in the final standings.

These numbers would not be surprising if you have been following Indian sports for a while. We have always been a nation which has failed to excel in sports at international level. In fact until recently a career in sports wasn’t even considered a career by Indian parents (that is until the IPL came along). But take these numbers and the news that India was banned from Olympics over the breach of Olympic code together and you will get answers to many questions on Indian sports.

Indian sports has long been plagued with corruption and the fiasco over organising the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010 was the first time that the irregular practices came to the fore, that too on an international stage. It’s no surprise that we have been ranked 96^th out of 176 nations on a transparency and corruption perception index. And the suspension of India from Olympics was the final nail in the coffin.

A delegation from Indian Olympics Association (IOA) met the officials from International Olympics Committee (IOC) this week to resolve the issue. India could be back within three months subject to certain conditions as laid down by the IOC. As an avid Indian sports fan, I‘m extremely happy that India will get to participate in the 2016 Rio Olympics.

But this is no time to celebrate. I fear this outcome will not teach the wrongdoers a lesson. For us Indians tend to have short term memory when it comes to such things. Post the CWG saga, it was thought that everything would be cleaned up within the IOA; some of the culprits were even put behind the bars. But three years hence and little seems to have changed. The culprits are out and roaming scot free. To add it to it we were hit with a new low – “Banned from Olympics” read the headlines late last year.

Given the fact that India might be back in the Olympics soon, don’t be surprised if all of this is forgotten sooner. Not only this, as the Rio Olympics comes closer, we might even have campaigns like “Gold at Rio” sponsored by big corporate houses. And Indian fans will hope that a miracle will help India do well. For all you know we may have yet another Abhinav Bindra who could win gold at Rio. And news channels will run shows telling the viewers about how the sporting scenario is indeed improving in the country while various sports associations will take all the credit.

But what we fail to acknowledge is that the Bindra’s of the world are the result of individual brilliance, not someone coming out of a system. Most of our Olympic stars over the years have not been stars because they were part of a system but simply because of their hard-work and desire, and they deserve all the credit.

The marriage between India and Olympics can at best be described as a relationship built on hope. The future of Indian sports unfortunately looks gloomy to say the least. But as they say, “There is hope as long as there is life.” Initiatives like the Clean Sports India (CSI – an initiative by sports persons to clean up the mess) are a few silver linings amidst the dark clouds of corruption.

All we can do, as always, is to continue to hope for a better tomorrow for Indian sports.