India, the world’s second most populous nation, has the worst Olympic record in terms of medals per head. The country has bagged just 24 medals since it first sent a contingent to the Games in 1920.
And now, Rio Olympics contributed just 2 medals to the total medal tally of India. India’s performance in the Olympics has always been dismal. The question on people’s mind was that is the reality of two medals out of a contingent that had 117 athletes competing was too bothering or not.
Some thought India aren’t investing enough in the athletes for their preparation while others thought India’s sports policy at the grassroots level needs a re-look.
India invested Rs 36.85 crores on its athletes under the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) in a bid to get maximum medallists. Although each sport and discipline categorically has different investment requirements, putting in large sums of money does not necessarily guarantee success at the Olympic level.
For example, despite investing roughly over a crore on each member of the shooting team, they failed to get a single medal. Rs 7.80 crore were investing in the preparation of 30 out of the 36 members of the athletics team under the TOPS scheme and we had just one Indian out of those making it to a final of an event – Lalita Babar in the 3000m women’s steeplechase.
Here is the Eye-Opening List:
Where the above athletes clearly disappointed, there were those who did exceedingly well, even with lesser money budgeted for them.
Silver-medallist PV Sindhu’s Rs 45.27 lakh was less than invested on other badminton players like K Srikanth (Rs 58.51 lakh), Jwala Gutta (Rs 46.73 lakh), Ashwini Ponappa (Rs 46.53 lakh) and B Sumeeth Reddy (Rs 45.45 lakh).
Sakshi Malik received least funding (Rs 15.86 lakh), less than half of what the other two women wrestlers – Vinesh Phogat (Rs 36.65 lakh) and Babita Kumari (Rs 31.74 lakh) got. Does that mean those who fixed these amounts didn’t expect a medal that much from Sakshi as compared to others? Who knows.
Just to let people know before they ‘jump the gun’, shooting is a heavy investment sport that requires a lot of equipment to be imported and the players to train extensively abroad.
Imagine what will happen if the gymnastics budget is increased. We stand a chance to get many more Dipas to challenge the Simone Biles’ of the world.
Although this could be debated but there was no doubt that the duo of Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna was a string of good games away from a silver medal at one stage during the semis of the mixed doubles event.