Olympics 2024 | A different ball game: India at the Paris Games

Hope — that we would have our first double-digit Olympic medal haul. Optimism — when our shooters got us off the mark. Ennui — as many days went by without a medal. Regret — that there is no copper for fourth place. Elation, then despair — the heaviest 100 grams Indian sport will know. Nostalgia — back-to-back hockey medals. And gratitude — for Neeraj, our one certainty in an uncertain world.

In decades past, the Indian Olympics fan's emotions used to be simpler — sadness, anger and cynicism.

During Paris 2024, it became clear that our collective relationship with Indian sport has well and truly come of age, or perhaps more accurately, can be likened to the teenage phase. We must now learn to deal with new — and increasingly complex — teenage emotions, similar to those illustrated quite beautifully in the animated film Inside Out 2. 

This was the strongest contingent we had ever sent. There was unprecedented funding and support from the government. The Target Olympic Podium Scheme upped its athlete numbers and its budgets — Rs 470 crore was spent on 16 disciplines during the cycle between the end of the Tokyo Games and the start of the Paris Games.

Corporate social responsibility and private funding gave athletes impetus. There was sports science support, medical staff, exercise physiology, nutrition and even sleep management available to athletes during training and competition.

For the fans, we had well-curated broadcast feeds dedicated to Indian athletes' matches — no more watching others’ parades on the world feed and waiting for the next day's newspaper to tell us how our athletes had fared. So many of our fellow Indians turned up in Paris and occupied the venues. There were unmistakable sightings of the ‘tiranga’, and chants of ‘India Jeetega’.

After the seven medals in Tokyo, Paris 2024 was meant to be our graduation party. But it did not turn out that way.

Though more Indian athletes contended for medals and reached late rounds than ever before, the medals themselves did not come in the numbers we hoped for. 

Was this an important reminder that sport is not a static engineering challenge? Intent, talent, resources and effort are necessary elements to get the outcomes we want, but there is more to winning than just inputs. 

As we introspect on the outcomes of Paris 2024, we will inevitably take feedback from the medal tally. What we do next could define our nation’s sporting future. Reflecting our emotions, Indian sport is at a teenage phase too.

The teenage years are confusing. You are neither an adult nor a child. Growing expectations meet a limited toolset. The teen is talented, but still learning. Right now, Indian sport occupies these spaces. Responding with anger, finger-pointing and lectures are unlikely to make it to any ‘Parenting a Teenager 101’ guide. 

This is not a call to issue everyone a free pass. In fact, it is quite the contrary. It is a call to direct our attention to where it matters within our ecosystem. We can double down on our talent identification and management systems, and refocus our sports governance frameworks. If we are to get better and seize the moments, we must plan, train, prepare and govern better. 

Although a significant improvement on the past, the preparation of our athletes is based on a rather splintered, patchwork approach. With the Target Olympic Podium Scheme, the government provides a scaffolding for athletes to climb on, outside the formal sports federation structures. 

Private funders fill vacant spaces, bringing a new breed of professionals into Indian sport who try to do their best for their organisations while supporting athletes. Athletes naturally go where support is available — even abundant — and perceived friction is limited. While this has worked to make our athletes globally competitive, scaling their achievements will need new interweaving, partnerships and collaboration among institutions.

In the melee, it is easy to forget that our sports federations and state governments are meant to be the primary drivers of sports development in our constitutional and legal structure. 

Some federations, like those running shooting, hockey and athletics, turned the corner a few years ago. They accepted feedback and invested in their competition structures, athlete codes of conduct, talent development systems and selection procedures. Our medal tally is a product of the increased surface area of contenders that their efforts have borne. Other federations can take a page out of their books. It should not be lost on us that only 16 of our 56 National Sports Federations had representatives in the Indian Olympic contingent. 

Punjab, Haryana and Odisha have contributed actively to the rising tide in Indian sport development. It is now an opportunity for several other states to stand up and make their own unique contributions to the national sports agenda.

A balanced approach is also needed towards government monetary rewards schemes. Currently, they act as ‘bounty’ systems with huge payouts for winners, and sharp lines between third and fourth place. Overemphasising medals as sole measures of success can have detrimental effects that cascade through the system, especially one in which livelihoods and careers for athletes are not a given.

The thing is we have applied band-aids and built an ad hoc structure around a weak core. Things might appear hunky-dory, and a significant improvement on the past. But the past we are benchmarking against had a low base to start with, and a vast room for improvement stretches out ahead of us. Sport governance reform can no longer be left simmering on the back burner.

Manu Bhaker who finished third in the 10m Air Pistol Women

Enabling pathways

Indian sport — our teenager — is growing up. You can see that in Manu Bhaker’s confident smile, in Lakshya Sen’s brilliance, in Neeraj’s focus, in Aman Sehrawat's determination, in the intensity and hard work with which all of our athletes approached the Olympics. Yet, Manu feels the need to remind us not to get upset with her if she does not win a third medal and Neeraj is seen as having lost gold.    

Are we a sporting nation? Can we be one? In reality, we are and will be the nation that all of us want us to be. And what we want to be depends on how we think about, talk about and act around our sport.

How can we avoid the tempting trap of judging our national and personal self-worth by our position on the final medal table? What opportunities do we create for our young and not-so-young to sample sport, train and excel, or simply to live active lives? 

Medals are outcomes of systems that not only pursue them, but also have enabling pathways for the athlete to play, grow, learn, progress, compete, excel and thrive. Building those pathways is not just an opportunity — it is a national imperative.

How can we ensure that our broken ladders are fixed so that talent, wherever it lands — and history tells us that it lands quite indiscriminately — has a shot at making it all the way? These are the levers of sporting success that we must continue to build every day.

It is often darkest before dawn. What Indian sport now needs most from us is our care, attention, encouragement and love. There is a unique beauty in seeing a teenager grow up. With support, they become resilient, confident and ready to lead. And in those moments when our athletes’ tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection, our country will awake.

(Nandan Kamath is a Bengaluru-based lawyer. He is managing trustee of GoSports Foundation and co-founder of Sports and Society Accelerator)