RINGS OF HOPE
THE 121 INDIAN ATHLETES OFF TO RIO THIS TIME ARE DIFFERENT FROM ANY OTHER CONTINGENT IN THE PAST. THEY ARE NOT JUST HOPING FOR MEDALS, THEY ARE GOING FOR GOLD
on a hot morning in Zirakpur, Punjab, inside the sprawling, well-appointed grounds of a farmhouse, a wormhole takes you on an incredible journey through time and space. It transports you across hemispheres to Rio de Janeiro, specifically to the Olympic Shooting Centre on the northwestern edge of Brazil’s most celebrated city, precisely on the morning of August 8, 2016. There you see Abhinav Bindra, India’s only individual Olympic gold medallist, a picture of stillness against the lime green background, taking aim at tiny concentric circles 10 metres away. You watch him shoot, round after round, scared to say anything that would break the magic spell. For several months, Bindra has been taking this secret passage through the corner of his vegetable garden to reach an Olympic wonderland.
The reality, though not quite as fantastical, is just as inspiring. When Bindra went to Rio for a test event in 2015, he clicked pictures of the shooting range from every conceivable angle and mailed the images back to his mother, Babli. By the time he returned, she had transformed his private shooting range in their back garden to look almost exactly like the one at Rio. So that when he’s shooting there—for a second Olympic gold—he will be as comfortable with the surroundings as he is at home.
Not every athlete is blessed with the luxuries that Bindra was born into. But every single one of India’s Olympic hopefuls is heading to Rio this summer by pushing their physical and mental limits to the point of obsession. If Yogeshwar Dutt, the wrestler who won a bronze at London 2012, is boosting his stamina by training for five hours a day in a hypoxic chamber that alters the atmosphere of the room to match the high-altitude conditions of a hill station, Dipa Karmakar, the first Indian woman gymnast to qualify for the Olympics, has put herself in solitary confinement at the impenetrable Indira Gandhi indoor stadium in Delhi.
The 121-strong Indian contingent this time is different from any other in the past. Talk to the athletes and you soon realise that there has been a seminal shift in mindsets over the past eight years—ever since that Beijing morning when Bindra made history. They are not just hoping for medals. They are going for gold. Whether or not they will win one is immaterial. That they feel they can, that they don’t consider themselves also-rans, just there to make up the numbers, that they are doing everything in their power to fulfil the dream—all this is uncharted territory for Indian sport.
Gone are the days when Indians woke up once every four years to the truth that we were entering the Olympics wondering why we had even bothered. It was always the same: three weeks of dull lamentation, which turned into exultation if that accidental medal came along, and then we waited to repeat the routine at the next Olympics. It was a good way to live—cosy and convenient, even if terribly monotonous. When you expect nothing, you usually end up with something. So, medal secure, we returned to obsessing about cricket, and life went on.
In the meantime, there were stories of our sports
Gone are the days when Indians woke up once every four years wondering why we had even bothered to enter the Olympics
administrators going on luxury trips as Chefs de Mission and observers, of corruption scandals, of them squatting as federation chiefs for decades even while our athletes were struggling to make ends meet, asked to live in abandoned railway compartments instead of hotels, denied basic coaching upgrades, and treated as second-class citizens in comparison with our cricketing superstars. Olympic sport in India had got into a vicious cycle where the only way athletes could get noticed was by achieving dramatic results in international competitions, which was difficult because they weren’t being given the facilities needed to achieve them.
But over the last two Olympics, India’s longoppressed athletes managed to take matters into their own hands and somehow flick a switch. By returning from Beijing with three medals and from London with six, they managed to make a callous nation care. At the wrestling hall in the Sports Authority of India’s Sonepat centre, young hopefuls have hung up photographs of Sushil Kumar and Dutt. They train in front of these trailblazers in a bid to emulate their accomplishments. Their heroes braved almost insurmountable odds—callous officials, underwhelming facilities, government apathy, and no fans to speak of—so why can’t they?
What is it about the Olympics that makes it the ultimate test of human achievement? What drives individuals whose everyday challenges are gruelling enough to pursue the challenges of sporting excellence? What makes Olympic glory a symbol of hope in a world full of despair? The answers, perhaps, lie in the vision of an odd little man called Pierre de Coubertain.
In 1912, just before the fifth modern Olympics, the French aristocrat had an epiphany. He drew one ring for each of the five continents, interlaced them, and painted them in the most dominant colours taken from national flags around the world. The Great Symbol was born. Five rings for peace and fraternity. Five rings to celebrate alliances forged through mutual respect instead of pragmatism. Five rings to celebrate rivalries built on admiration instead of jealousy. Five Rings, to borrow from J.R.R. Tolkien, To Rule Them All.
Coubertain often spoke of how the Olympics was not about winning and losing, it was about how you played the game. And therein lay his ultimate dare. How you played the game meant not just playing with respect and honesty, but playing to the best of your abilities, to give it your all, to push your boundaries, and with it, the boundaries of human endeavour.
We, in India, never really got to experience the Olympics through that prism. Apart from hockey, all we could boast of were a couple of near-misses in 1960 and 1984, and some happy surprises fuelled by the individual passion of Khashaba Jadhav, Leander Paes, Karnam Malleswari and Rajyavardhan Rathore in 1952, 1996, 2000 and 2004. Our current generation of athletes has finally changed that, aided by bodies such as the Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ), which have allowed elite sportsmen the freedom to express themselves and finally unearth the true spirit of the Olympics.
Of course, India still has a long way to go before it can emerge as a genuine sporting nation. For that, our society will have to embrace sport as a culture, as a way of life. We’ve taken only baby steps, but enormous ground has been covered nonetheless. On the sidelines of the India Today Conclave 2016, all-England badminton
India has a long way to become a sporting nation. We’ve taken baby steps, but enormous ground has been covered nonetheless
champion and India’s national coach, Pullela Gopichand, explained the true nature of the problem India faced.
Gopi drew an isosceles triangle and then drew three horizontal lines across it, dividing the triangle into three parts. The largest section at the base, he said, was the number of people playing sport in India. The middle section represented those playing competitively. And the tiny tip were the elite athletes, the cream that had risen to the top. To get more elite athletes, he said, the triangle needs to become larger so that the smallest section on the top also grows in proportion. That’s the only way. What hasn’t helped matters is that the government has done hardly anything to support the growth of sport, and while facilities are now available for elite athletes who have somehow scaled the mountain on their own, there is precious little for those who are striving to climb it.
But Gopi’s perfect, bottom-up analysis comes with a top-down corollary. The better our elite sportsmen do, the more they are seen live on TV competing for medals, the more their pictures go up in boxing gyms, wrestling arenas and shooting ranges across the country, the more Indians will be inspired to start playing. And the faster the base will grow.
Rio 2016 is, therefore, the next big step in India’s sporting journey. Our elite sportsmen dare to dream now. And it’s time for the rest of us to dream with them. So let the rustle of the next few pages reveal how our top athletes have battled the odds to give India more than a whiff of hope. And, for the first time in earnest, Let the Games Begin!