India - A Sporting Nation In Building

“Sports teaches you character, it teaches you to play by rules, it teaches you to know what it feels like to win and lose, and most importantly it teaches you about life”, but in our country sports as a career is almost every time laughed at. It’s a myth that with sports as a career you can’t reach anywhere in life. It’s our mindset that sports won’t give us far-reaching results, and that’s the only cause for our poor performance at the Olympics – the world’s biggest sporting event.

Sports is very essential for every human life, which keeps them fit and fine and provide physical strength. It has great importance in each stage of life. Sports is good for any nation. Sports and physical education are necessary components of human development, good health and companionship and to have a spirit of friendly competition.

Sports in India can be dated back to ancient times with references found in the Vedas and Indus Valley Civilization. Archaeological excavations of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa reveal that people indulged in physical activities and also enjoyed playing a variety of games using marbles, balls, and dice. Hunting, swimming boating, and boxing were also played and nurtured in India during ancient times.

Once upon a time, India used to rule the world of hockey, producing world-class drag flickers, and bringing home almost every gold medal they played for. Later on, India fell far behind. To add on, the change of the playing field from natural grass to Astroturf put India far behind in the world of hockey nearly erasing its name off the list. The only reason for taking a lot of time to catch up on these grounds is due to the lack of infrastructure and unavailability of such grounds in our homeland. Except for hockey, India has never qualified for any other team game at the Olympics.

The love for Cricket in India is quite obvious seeing the craze and hype during IPL and Cricket world cups. Everybody is just glued to their television screens. We have a very strong cricket team, that has been satisfactory and doing well. India has produced world-class spinners like Chandrashekar and B.S.Bedi, along with world-class wicket taker Kapil Dev, and we just can’t forget the God of Indian Cricket and the Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar. While we are lost in the game of Cricket, we forget that there are many other athletes in India who bring laurels to the country. Just like cricketers they also devote their full day to their game just to make sure they return home with the gold in every tournament. But it is a pity that we rarely recognize their efforts. They work in silence unnoticed to wave our Indian flag the highest during any tournament. It's high time that we pay heed and recognize the efforts of these athletes as well.

Another major issue that is knocking on the doors of Indian sports really hard is the lack of choosing sports as a career. Developing a career in sports is almost not supported in India. You get mocked for raising such an idea. The government as well doesn’t extend a helping hand in support of these athletes. Government lacks to recognize young budding athletes and provide them with appropriate training, nutrition, and expenditure. The government should give priority to games and sports as a means of national pride. We support our Indian soldiers but hesitate to support our very athletes and then pity our performance at the Olympics. What we don’t understand is that just like an Indian soldier, the athletes also fight for the honour and soul of the nation. Like a soldier, their blood, sweat, and sacrifice put the country on a pedestal. They work hard day in and day out to bring glory to our very own country.

Another concern that troubles the growth of Indian sports is insufficient support for Indian athletes. Many cultures consider sports to be a male domain. Societies assume that the physical and psychological qualities associated with athleticism such as stamina, endurance, and competitiveness are masculine. Some fear that playing sports will cause loss of virginity and physical exertion will cause the hymen to tear. Women fear playing during menstruation due to age-old beliefs. Women tend to be alienated from sports media at all levels. What we generally ignore is that if a woman can give birth to a child, she can surely sustain herself during vigorous training activity and bring laurels to her country. Women are often termed as weak and so least supported in sports. But rising female sports personalities in India like P.V. Sindhu, Mary Kom, Saina Nehwal, Sania Mirza, Rani Rampal, P.T. Usha, Karnam Malleshwari, and many more are shutting every mouth that raised an issue of them being interested in sports and put female sports on the map of India. They didn’t limit their challenges, instead, they challenged the limits put upon them for being a woman. Everybody is well versed with the term Olympics, it’s the world’s greatest sporting event. India’s performance at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympic games has been satisfactory but not good. India’s performance at the 2016 Rio Olympics has been quite below par, bringing home only two medals, Silver by ace badminton player P.V. Sindhu and Bronze by wrestler, Sakshi Malik. India had sent a large contingent to the Rio Olympics but most returned home empty-handed except for the two females. And staying with the premise make hay while the sun shines, we Indians started mocking our very own Olympic contingent. We never paid heed while those same athletes were bringing glory to India at other tournaments but just saw their poor performance at the Olympics. Just getting qualified for the Olympics in itself is a great achievement.

‘Success isn’t given, it's earned on the track, in the gym, on the field, with blood, sweat, and the occasional tear.’ Earlier most parts of India lacked this basic sporting infrastructure due to the absence of enough money as the government and we citizens didn’t support sports. While our athletes were dreaming about practicing with this infrastructure, other countries were busy building it.

Apart from infrastructure, there is even a shortage of experienced coaches and trainers. We can’t ignore that ‘behind every successful athlete is a dedicated coach, who refused to let them be anything but the best they can be.’ Coaches and trainers are an integral part of any athlete’s life. Apart from training, coaches also play an important role in keeping their motivation high, interpreting their practice graph, giving them a view of their strengths and weaknesses, and most importantly keeping their mental health stable. Only if one is trained by an experienced coach can make world-class records and scripting history.

Adding on, if we compare our citizens to other countrymen, we are quite lazy to perform physical activities. We just drive off sports as a career because we need to undergo vigorous physical training, this is a major issue that needs to be immediately worked upon. After all, it is a rough road that leads to the height of greatness. We need to sacrifice and work hard in order to achieve something big because it's better to suffer the pain of discipline than the pain of regret.

Another concern that hinders our growth up the sports ladder is self-doubt, particularly seen in young athletes. We get anxious on learning that our competitors are more experienced than us, and done…that’s the end, we forget the strategies, and tactics and then we eventually lose. They might be more experienced than us, but if we don’t take the risk, we’ll lose the chance. If we take the risk and win, our names will be printed in the books of history, because it is better to live one year like a tiger rather a thousand like a sheep. We should always remember winners are not people who don’t fail but are people who don’t quit.

Another serious issue that bangs the door of Indian sports is gender testing, which is only applicable to female athletes. Just like their male counterparts they also strive hard all day round just to give their best shot during any tournament. And all that they expect is a little appreciation, respect, and recognition from us citizens. Instead of appreciating them, we start raising doubts about their gender, which is really embarrassing. They are the daughters of India who work hard to put the country on a pedestal and when their performance is mind-blowing and outstanding instead of appreciating them, we ditch them. Instead of celebrating their success, we send them for gender testing. Male athletes never have to undergo such things even if they perform exceptionally well. The most decorated Olympian and the G.O.A.T of swimming, Michael Phelps's arms are longer than other humans, so technically it gives him an advantage as a swimmer to reach farther. The greatest sprinter of all time, Usain Bolt’s legs have a higher proportion of fast-twitch to low-twitch fibers than the average man at 80% compared to 50 %, giving him an edge enabling remarkable power and force and a speed of 99.9% higher than the general population. Brady Ellison who holds the longest record for being a World No. 1 ranked men’s recurve archer also has some advantages. His vision is 20/10, which means that he can see at 20 feet what mere mortals can only make out at half that distance. He can shoot an arrow over 86 yards away and hit a target that is 4.8 inches in diameter, which gives him an edge over the other archers. If these athletes have never been questioned about their advantage over the other athletes, why do we question our female athletes who have higher testosterone levels as compared to the other females? Just having higher testosterone levels doesn’t mean you are not a female. Apart from their testosterone levels, it is their dedication, practice, hard work, tears, blood, and sweat that they have shed that have paved their way to that pinnacle. 

Many Indian athletes in the past like Dutee Chand, Pratima Gaonkar, Santhi Soundaranjan, Pinki Pramanik, etc. were prisoners of this test. Not only in India but worldwide as well gender testing is a big concern. Few fought against it, few died by suicide and few were just saved from suicide. They had been banned from competing just due to higher testosterone levels. Gender testing disturbs the mental state of an athlete and should be stopped immediately.

We often forget our para-athletes, who just like the athletes strive hard to bring laurels to our country. We frequently term them as disabled but they are specially-abled. The splendid performance by our Paralympic contingent at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics Games has put an end to the myth that disabled people can’t fulfill their dreams. They have fulfilled whole India’s dream of seeing two podium finishes in one category. Not only this but it's all due to their efforts and dedication that we could hear our national anthem being played twice a day five times at the Olympic stadium in Tokyo. 

Be it what so ever but Indian sports has come a long way and has much more to go further. From the historic win of our Men’s Hockey team to the nation waking up at four a.m. to watch golf and gymnastics, from Bhavani Devi putting Indian fencing on the Olympic map to the narrow loss of our Indian Woman’s Hockey team, from P.V. Sindhu scripting history in Indian sports once again to Mary Kom’s bout been manipulated, from our Men’s doubles badminton pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy defeating the former Olympics Gold medallist to Neeraj Chopra bagging the Gold and becoming an inspiration to millions overnight, from Bhavana Patel bagging two Paralympic medals in a single edition to Harvinder Singh winning the first Paralympic medal for India in Archery, from our Paralympians showing us two podium finishes in a category to let us hear our India National Anthem been sung at the Tokyo stadium five times, Indian sports has come a long way and we Indians have the capability to change India into a sporting nation.