Once again Zero Sum Game

One first-time gold in Olympics and India goes berserk. The truth is our ossified sports establishment riding on millions has failed to usher in even an IOTA of sports culture in a country with just a handful of medals 

Akash Bisht Delhi 

Years before the Beijing Olympics commenced in 2008, China witnessed a refreshing sports wave that touched the entire length and breadth of this vast country. It seemed as if the entire nation was preparing itself for the coveted event wherein its citizens took immense pride in being part of it. While Beijing Olympics created a new wave of sports in Chinese villages and towns, schools and colleges, creating and nurturing thousands of potential athletes, the Commonwealth Games (CWG) in Delhi seem to be confined to a massive digging and building exercise, while the rest of India (even Delhi) remains indifferent to this hyped event, especially potential talents in sports.  

Through Beijing Olympics, China aimed at clinically building a sports culture that could help them win medals for all times to come, along with international recognition for holding such a massive and prestigious event. In the build-up, China launched the Mass Sports Activities Plan and started training athletes as early as 2003 to mobilise citizens to participate in sports activities. They also stressed on the "need to promote traditional sports and sports for the differently-abled, and discover and sift the ethnic groups' sports and traditional folk sports by bringing out the new and weeding out the old, so that mass sports activities will become regular, scientific and popular".  

However, in India, the games authorities only seem to be mired in numerous controversies, delayed projects, internal bickering, corruption charges, real estate rumours and political vendetta, that keep haunting the CWG's Organising Committee (OC) relentlessly. There are serious doubts in the foreign media about India's preparedness and if it can really pull it off. Amidst all this, a golden opportunity to alter the sports culture of this cricket-obsessed country and create a genuine love for different sports and athletics has been decisively debunked and buried.   

Experts agree that with proper planning, the CWG could have created a universal, popular and mass sports culture that would have benefited India in the long run. This abject lack of planning and vision has hurt India's future prospects badly. "Infrastructure is being raised only in one city while people in other areas barely have such facilities; so how can you revive sports culture by ignoring the real India," complains Balbir Singh Bhatia, former secretary, Indian Weightlifting Federation. 

Many believe that the games are being held to boost India's image as an upcoming commercial and economic hub in the global market and the event doesn't really have anything to do with visionary sports ethos or the future. Before the Beijing Olympics, China had devised classified categories through evaluation: sports with gold medal chances, sports with medal chances, sports with chances from fourth to eighth places, and sports with chances for participation. In India, the focus of the organising committee has solely been on the construction industry, building infrastructure and spending vulgar amounts of money all over. "So where are all the millions going?" ask the cynics.  

The BJP leader Vijay Goel told Hardnews, "Olympics made China famous while CWG is making India infamous. Is this the vision that Mr Kalmadi and his team of experts had for the games in India? Lack of this vision has blurred the real reason for holding the games in the country."