We may have achieved a lot of things in the more than five decades since our independence. But never Olympic medals. They have been really difficult to come by. In 1964 our Great Milkha secured a fourth place in the 400 m and in 1984 I came fourth in Los Angeles.
We both came from humble backgrounds without much knowledge about the Olympics. Since we took athletics seriously, our aim was not mere participation. Winning a medal at the world level was our primary aim. We put in a lot of hard work, and had utmost dedication and sincerity towards the goal of excelling. By the mercy of god we achieved only fourth places. Fortune didnt exactly smile on us and we were denied the coveted medal. But we are still proud of it.
Sadly, what we lack today is an awareness in sports. Those were the days when we could not even dream of the infrastructure that todays sportspersons have at their disposal. For instance I saw a synthetic track for the first time at Moscow in 1980. Two years later, we had the first synthetic track in India. There is a near-total absence of sports science: sports physiology departments, bio-mechanics labs are absent. To help our athletes compete with the best in the world, we have to switch to scientific training. But till now weve been turning a blind eye to it. And if medical facilities are absent, the same goes for motivation and financial help.
The biggest impediments to our sporting success are our lax authorities. Our sports administrators are forever busy politicking and cribbing for their vested interests. No one is talking about what the country needs. Sometimes I even wonder whether they indeed stand in the way of our success. For example, in 1982 when I was 18 years old, I won a gold medal in 200 m in the World junior meet at Seoul with a timing of 24.28 sec. When Marion Jones (US) was 18 years old, she clocked 24.62 sec in 200 m. Today she is able to clock 21 and a half. But what happened in my case? I clocked only 23.25 sec. That also at the age of 35. Another case in 1984. I came fourth in the LA Olympics, the eighth place went to Sandra Parmer Patrick (Jamaica); and the sixth place went to Debby Flintoff King of Australia. They won gold at the World Championships at Rome in 1987 and gold at the Seoul Olympics in 1988 respectively, where I came again in the fourth place and heats out in the respective events. So did I lack talent? Who was responsible for my stagnant performance? The government? The sports authorities? The coach? Or me? I dont know.
What we really need is proper and serious attention to sports in our country to produce medal winning champions. Only .02 per cent of our GDP is spent on sports. The lions share of this allocation is eaten up by salaries and allowances of sports officials. Good performers come up from time to time, but they are mostly driven by individual motivation. Until and unless we introduce a proper sports system, we can never produce sportsmen of the calibre to bring home Olympic medals.
