The future is Golden

Abhinav Bindra won the first individual gold medal for India. That's an old news now. India's hopes for another medal from this olympics are almost crushed. That's also old news

now. what I found the most interesting part of India's olympic campaign was an honest comment from Abhinav : "We need professionals, not politicians" to manage sports in India.

So very true !

We Indians as a nation, and in almost all cases as an individual as well, have been crazy about Cricket. Almost every kid who ever played a field sport in india is likely to have played cricket for sure. Cricket is a religion, cricket is God. It's a different story that India hasn't been that successful as a team. In terms of achievements in cricket, what do we have to show? A world cup that we won some 25 years back ? A few more trophys here and there? But we Indians still spend hours and days following every game that india plays, even if we know that we are going to lose. We are passionate about Cricket. But why can't we have the same passion for other sports?

Don't get me wrong here. It's not that people in India are not interested in playing other sports.Abhinav Bindra, Rajyavardhan Rathode, Baichung Bhutia, PT Usha, leander Paes, Sania Mirza and many more have proved that if we try, we can make a mark in other sports too. I don't think we are lacking an interest on the part of public, although the interest is not as widespread and as deep as cricket.

In my opinion, the problem lies elsewhere.

a. The first major problem is that the Government has not been forthcoming in showing the same kind of support and dedication for the upliftment of sports in india in general as is the case with cricket. This is where we come to the point that Abhinav made: "We need professionals, not politicians" to run the show. Only then we will be making the right investment at the right place. Taking Australia as an example(although Europe/America also have similar models), Australia has a professional body called Australian Sports Commission(earlier on Australian Institute of Sport) that was setup after a (not so compared to India) dismal performance of Australia in 1976 olympics. ASC gives out about 700 scholarships every year to talented sportsperson to make it big in the field of their choice. As it appears, it has its own professional management board that just specializes in running ASC. Let's try to learn some best practices from them. What we really need is to setup a proper professional body to manage the growth and development of all sports in India. SAI and IOA already exist. If you want to use them, make them fully professional and accountable for every penny and every activity. Bring in people who know sports rather than politicians.

b. Where's the money ? The budget for Youth Affairs and Sports together is about INR 8900 millions. INR 4900 m of this is for Sports. Compare that to Australia's $264 m (INR 962o m @Rs.37 per AUS $). Obviously, we need to spend a lot more than australia at this time because we don't have the facilities that Australia has already built over the years, yet it is having a huge budget compared to India. Given that we will need to have a far more deeper peneration to get the best from the most remote parts of the country, more money is needed. Obviously, in a country where every penny counts(atleast on paper), getting more money for Sports is going to be a challenge. That's something that finance minister will have to look into. An interesting comparison is IPL that generated a revenue of about INR 12000 m during its 1st year of operations and profits to the tune of about INR 3500 m. How about pulling some money from the BCCI coffers and using elsewhere?

c. Who in India want's to see the olympic sports? That is going to be a concern. But the way I look at it, one Gold win by Abhinav took the nation by storm. Everyone talked about it, everyone still talks about it. My "hardcore cricket fan" friends also praised his efforts and were genuinely excited about the achievement. I feel people relate to cricket because that's probably one sport where we still manage to win some. If we start winning elsewhere, people will take notice for sure and come out in support. And to make that happen, we will need to build world class infrastructure and training facilities to produce best atletes who will eventually go on to win medals and change the mindset of the indian public.

Abhinav's win in remarkable not only because its a first. It takes more significance because it's something that has started a national debate on the future of Olympics Sports in India. Hopefully people in power are listening attentively and will take steps to take India right onto the middle spot of the podium.

The future is Bright, the future is Golden :)