Now that Olympics, are over, I would like to give my assessment of how India fared in both Qualifications and Olympics and future prospects for each sports.
Archery:
Archery is a very fickle sport. Korea is in a league of their own and after that, a number of nations can win on any given day. India is part of that group of nations but sadly, we never seem to win on the given day. Men's team not even qualifying for Olympics was a big disappointment.
In Olympics, archers started well in qualifications but second half was simply disastrous. Though, we managed to get decent draws inspite of bad qualifications (once again showing the fickle nature of Archery), we couldn't capitalise on it. There is immense talent in the team but somehow they always falter at Multi Sports Games.
Before London Games, our team was in great form and we were among favourites for medal but team suffered a complete meltdown. Archery Association (among the best run Sports Federation in India, according to me) did take corrective measures after that. They have a strict and transparent selection policy. When Deepika was out of form in 2014, even she was dropped from the team. Learning from London, this time, our team was sent quite early to Rio to get acclimatised to conditions better. There were mental conditioning camps for the team as well. Our team did perform better compared to London. They looked much more composed. Sadly, that was not enough and we failed to reach later stages of competition once again.
Going forward, I honestly don't know what to expect. We have a decent pool of young archers who are doing well in international events. We do need special training for windy conditions. Also, we need more archers to push Deepika. Though Korea won both individual events, the eventual gold medal winners were not the favourites before the games. Korea is so good because all three of their participants are the top level. In India, only Deepika is at that level. Atanu has shown great promise in this Olympics and hopefully, he will also reach the top level soon. But, if we want a medal in Tokyo, we need 6 archers at that level.
Badminton:
Qualification was more or less expected. Apart from Mixed Doubles, we had participation in other 4 events. In WS, we had the maximum allowed participation. Kashyap, Jayaram and Prannoy were close to qualifying as well. I feel that if Kashyap had been fit, he would have qualified alongside Srikanth. So, no regrets in qualifications.
Going into Olympics, none of Srikanth, Saina and Sindhu were in great form. Srikanth had a horrible second half in 2015 and Saina's ranking also had dropped significantly. Sindhu also could not improve her ranking enough to get a top 8 seeding. So, as expected, we had to face higher opponents earlier (Jorgensen and Tai in Rd of 16). Doubles team are good enough to qualify but are nowhere near top 8, so once again expectations weren't that high.
Attri/Reddy had the worst possible draw, their 3 group opponents were all ranked in top 10. They had absolutely no chance of qualifying to next stage. They did well in winning a match against Japanese pair.
Gutta/Ponappa had a decent draw. They could have qualified for the next stage if they won against the Dutch pair. But, it was a close match-up and they lost in 3 games. Was a bit disappointed in loss against Thai pair. Though match was inconsequential, ending the Olympics with a win would have been better.
Saina got injured in the run up to the Olympics. As many have pointed out, maybe it was Karma for the bronze she won in London. She is a fighter and will come back strongly. Was really sad to see the way her commitment was questioned in media after her loss to Ukrainian. Also, sad was the way, people were making fun of her after Sindhu's medal.
Srikanth did well to defeat Jorgensen in Rd of 16. He gave a tough fight to Lin Dan in Quarters. For second Olympics, we have lost in Quarter to a legend. Srikanth is a form player, and hopefully, this performance will give him enough confidence and he will once again reach the level he was in late 2014-early 2015.
Sindhu has nerves of steel. Playing her first Olympics, she reached finals. She has now won 2 Bronze and 1 Silver in World Championships and Olympics in last 4 years. Her defence was her weakest link but here she showed immense improvement in defence. Defeating in form Tai, Yihan and Okuhara in straight sets requires great physical and mental strength. In the final, Sindhu played great badminton but Marin was simply better. Sindhu also became the first Indian women to win a Silver.
This success we are having in Badminton is result of hard work put in by 3 generations: Prakash Padukone, Gopichand and current crop of players. Padukone and Gopichand academies are doing an excellent work. We have the next batch of youngsters ready to push the current players. Gopichand never had any competition at national level. Aparna Popat was way better than others in WS for a long time. Now, that is not the case. This depth will ensure that we continue to improve in Badminton.
I have high hopes from Badminton in Tokyo. Hopefully, we will also improve in Doubles by that time and will have a large team and multiple medals.
Athletics:
We qualified record number of athletes. Also, a large number of National records were broken in the process. But, somehow I don't feel excited about them. In fact, improvements shown by some is suspicious. AFI re-appointing a doping tainted coach for the women's 4x400 relay team also increases my fears.
In the Olympics, except Lalita Babar, Manish Rawat, T Gopi and Kheta Ram nobody came even close to their Personal Bests. I know, that a large number of them had already pushed themselves to the limit to qualify for Olympics and hence, were not in peak form, so it should have been expected, but still it was sad to see. I expected more from Vikas Gowda and Seema Antil. They are experienced and had qualified fairly early, so they should have done better but now it is clear that they are past their prime. As for Tintu Luka, we need to accept that she is not going to come even close to the level that we had hoped for. She will hover around 2 minute mark. Occasionally drop below 2 minute mark and win medals but thats it. I think, she should give 400m a try. Maybe it will be a better fit. Our relay teams promised much but failed to deliver. After the result in 800m, there will be increased attention on hyperandrogenism and hence on Dutee Chand. I hope we support her no matter what the IAAF/CAS decide. We should not fail her like we failed Santhi and Pinky.
Since 2014, AFI has followed a policy of not sending 'tourists' to Asian Games and CWG. But, it was interesting to see AFI not selecting Tintu in the initial relay team (they even tried to not select Nirmala and Anas in the team but were not allowed due to IAAF rules) even though she was always going to run the relay. Only reason for doing so is that they wanted to inflate the number of athletes qualified. This is nothing but hypocrisy. If sending 'tourists' to AG and CWG harms our image then let us not send 'tourists' to Olympics as well. If artificially inflating number of athletes is kosher for Olympics, why stop deserving athletes from going to AG and CWG.
Also, AFI should seriously think about hiring an intern who can read a 2-3 page qualification document. Not knowing that athletes qualified for 400m HAVE to be selected for relay team is simply unprofessional. Also, they should have known that there are no wild cards in athletics. Still they wasted time in trying for a wild card for Neeraj Chopra. They even sent the useless media on a wild goose chase regarding that. Fans and Neeraj were given a false hope. They even made a fool of themselves by starting a Change.org petition asking for wild card for Neeraj.
The way AFI is run is an indicator that having ex-sportspersons as head of National federations is not the "Raam-baan ilaaj" people think it is.
For the future, in Neeraj we have a genuinely good athlete. It would be interesting to see how he progresses. Other promising youngsters in the recent past (Durgesh Pal and Navjeet Dhillon) didn't transition to the seniors easily. They are still young and improving so there is still hope. For Tokyo, I would be happy with a large team qualifying early and couple of finals.
P.S. The way people are calling Lalita's incredible performance, best by an Indian athlete since PT Usha saddens me a lot. It shows that we have already forgotten Anju Bobby George, Vikas Gowda and Krishna Poonia's performances. Also, I rate JJ Sobha and Soma Biswas's performance at 2004 Olympics quite high.
Boxing:
In Boxing, there is not much to write. Only 3 boxers qualifying for Olympics was a big step back from London. Thapa had a nightmare draw, eventual gold medal winner in Round 1. We are without a National Federation for quite some time now. First step on the path to recovery would be having a federation. We were on the right track till London, so have hopes that if we get our house in order, situation will improve.
But, even if we do all the right things, there is no certainty that results will come. AIBA is a mafia. India was never on their radar and hence, our boxers could be discriminated against easily. Sarita's outcry at Asian Games would not have helped. It would also be interesting to see if AIBA has the balls to take on powerful Irish federation or they will simply ignore the way Conlan lambasted them. And if they do take action against them, I am expecting a strong reaction from Irish team. Hopefully, something positive would come out from it.
I think Sarita and Mary would both retire now. I feel for Sarita. She had to move 2 weight classes to accommodate Mary at 52kg and got a horrible draw in 2012 qualifiers. She was robbed in Incheon. After that, she was never going to qualify for Olympics. She was too emotionally drained. Also, AIBA would never have allowed her to win or even qualify for Olympics after that.
For Tokyo, I have no hopes from Boxing. There are too many uncertainties.
Field Hockey:
Going into Olympics, my expectations (hope) from Women's team was win the match against Japan. They drew that match. So, 50-50. There is no doubt that Hockey India should have handled the Ritu Rani situation better. We are still a long way from the top level but this Olympics should have given good exposure to the team.
For the Men's team, I knew winning a medal was hard but heart was sure that we would break the drought. We played good hockey. Our fitness levels have improved a lot. We are no longer afraid against top teams and have victories against almost all the top teams in the last 2 years. But even with these many positives (may be because of them) this Olympics was one of heartbreak. The dying second draw against Germany was devastating. Full marks to the team for bouncing back with a win against Argentina. One does wonder what would have happened if we had managed to defeat Canada in the last league game and faced Spain in QF instead Belgium.
We need to work on our defence. There are times when we simply fail to clear the ball and allow opposition insane amount of possession, especially if we are leading in the 4th quarter. Also, we need to reduce our dependence on PC for goals.
Though Narinder Batra runs Hockey India like his personal fiefdom, he does take care of the players. Level of hockey in HIL is good and a large number of top foreign players also take part in it. It is a good learning experience for our youngsters. If Batra can control himself and not fire Oltmans for 4 years, I am hopeful, we can win a medal at Tokyo.
I would also like to thank FIH and Leandro Negre for the way they have supported Indian hockey in the recent past. They worked with HI even when Indian government was giving affidavits in courts that it had no problem if there were 2 different Hockey federations representing India. They allocated a large number of events to India. India would have struggled to qualify for so many events but took part in them due to being hosts. (FIH did that because of the revenue potential from India). Taking part in those tournaments helped us a lot.
Golf:
Don't follow the sport enough to make a comment. But would still like to laud the effort of Aditi Ashok. I didn't expect her to be so close to top after 2 rounds.
Gymnastics:
4 years back, I didn't think I would see an Indian gymnast qualify for Olympics in the near future. 2 years back, I hadn't heard of Dipa Karmakar. This year, we started our Independence day by cheering her. She came agonisingly close to an Olympic medal and won a billion hearts.
Road ahead for her is tough. Now, there are expectations. There are also indications that difficulty level of Produnova vault would be reduced. But, I am sure that Dipa and Nandi sir will overcome these challenges.
Rakesh Patra came close to qualifying. He was R1 for test event. So, with more focus, hopefully, we would have a male gymnast at Tokyo as well. As far as Nandi sir's claim (dream?) of 6 gymnasts for Tokyo. Fingers crossed.
Rowing:
Dattu did a very good job by finishing 13th.
We could have qualified a female rower as well but Rowing Federation of India didn't even send any female rowers to the qualifying event. RFI wants Army to find new talents, train them and keep them fit. It has done absolutely nothing to advance the sport. Still it has a problem if Army has internal selection trials and only sends selected rowers to Nationals.
Sawarn Singh also showed a lot of promise in finishing 16th in London Olympics but after that he faltered. Hopefully, Dattu would not fade away like Sawarn. Also, we need to remember that we are nowhere near the best in Rowing. We are decent enough to win a couple of medals in events, which China doesn't enter, at Asian Games and win couple of Asian quotas to Olympics. Thats it.
Shooting:
We did a good job in qualifying a large contingent. We had 6/6 in Men's Rifle, 5/6 in Men's Pistol and even managed to qualify 3 in Men's Shotgun. In Women's section, 2/4 in both Rifle and Pistol was not optimal but decent. Apart from the ones who qualified, there were atleast 3 to 4 more shooters who came close to qualifying. Among them, Elizabeth Susan Koshy was the most consistent and finished in top 20 in multiple World Cups in 50x3. So, apart from Women's Shotgun, rest was good.
Since 1996, Shooting has provided us with the maximum medals in Olympics. This squad had past Olympic champion (Bindra), medallist (Narang), one of the most consistent shooter in the past 2 years (Jitu Rai). Almost everyone in the squad has qualified for finals at World Cup stage and a good number of them have won medal at WC level. Also, they have among the best training facilities (compared to other Indian sports). In the last 2 Olympics, our shooters did exceptionally well in finals. 2 medals and a 4th place finish in 3 finals in 2012, Gold in the only final in 2008. So, our expectations were even higher.
But in Rio #Facepalm A good number of them were near top going into last series and then had a bad last series. It was very disappointing. Just 2 finals was not expected. 0 medals was shocking. It is hard to pin point what exactly went wrong. Law of averages? Nerves? Bad form? I honestly don't know.
Shooting is held at the beginning of the games. In the past, shooters winning medals has eased the pressure on others. This time, one wonders, what would have been the case had Jitu won a medal in 10m Air Pistol on first day. What if Bindra had won his shoot-off for Bronze. I think those near misses at the start demoralized the squad and rest felt tremendous pressure and wilted.
We have a good structure in place. NRAI has appointed a team led by Bindra to study why we failed in Rio. (I am not a fan of this decision. Bindra was part of Rio squad and hence should not have been part of the team). There are a number of juniors who have shown good promise. Except Bindra (who has retired) and maybe Manavjit, Narang and Nanjappa (great respect for the way he came back from paralysis in 2013 to qualify for Olympics) others are still young and should be in reckoning for Tokyo as well. So, we have a good mix of experience and youth and should qualify in larger number for Tokyo. Also, hopefully, we will put this disastrous Olympics behind us and return to winning medals in Tokyo.
Tennis:
Ever since, I have been following Tennis, it has been the same story. Paes and Bhupathi (now Bopanna) fighting. Forming team for Olympics and promising a medal. Failing to win one. The only thing that has changed is emergence of Sania Mirza. With her arrival, the legends found a new pawn to fight over, right to partner her in Mixed Doubles and try for a medal. In 2000, Paes/Bhupathi ran into Bryan brothers early on. In 2004, came 4th. In 2008, ran into an angry Federer in quarters. That was the last realistic chance for a medal in MD for two of the greatest Indian sportspersons of the last 20 years. They could never overcome their ego and hatred for each other and win Olympic medal. At their peak, they could have defeated two good Singles players as well, if they had good chemistry. But, alas their chemistry was gone in 2000 only.
The way both of them (along with their fathers and Bopanna) conducted themselves in the run up to London Olympics was shameful.
This time, I was disappointed that no one was able to qualify in MS. But, even there it is the same old story. Since the time of Ramanathan Krishnan, we have had promising youngsters. But no one (with the exception of Paes's Bronze in Atlanta) has come close to fulfilling their potential at the senior level. Just when we get hopeful about someone, he gets injured. And after injury, they just fade away.
In this Olympics, I always knew that our only realistic hope was in XD. Even in that, I was worried that we will lose to a team of good Singles players. 4th seeding did give me hope that we may sneak a medal. But, in the end, my fear came true. Murray was tired for his match and hence, we were able to defeat him. Even in SF, Venus was rusty at the start and we won the first set but once, Venus found her rhythm we lost the game. I didn't watch the Bronze medal match, so can't comment on that.
Going forward, Sania looks strong in WD but unless there is another decent women player, no chance of even competing for medal there. In MD, Raja/Sharan are decent but I don't think they can win a medal as well. Especially against good Singles players. We again have a small group of promising youngsters but given past track record, I am sceptical about their progress.
Now, Paes and Bopanna should retire. They can continue to play on ATP circuit but should not be considered for Davis Cup and Asian Games. I think AITA should have done this after London only. They are still better than the others but we need a clean slate if we want to have any chance.
Weightlifting:
I expected 1 lifter in each gender to qualify for Olympics. We did that. We came back strong in 2015 WC after a bad 2014 WC. We even came close to qualifying a second female lifter. (If Russia/Kazakhstan/Belarus were removed from WC rankings, there is a very good chance that we would have qualified 2 female lifters).
Team selection was pretty straightforward. At present, Mirabai Chanu is our best lifter by a margin. She is capable of winning medal in Olympics/WC. She was a long shot for medal here as well. It was sad seeing her failing to register a lift in C&J. I feel that in Weightlifting, one should always try and get a valid lift, because even if you finish 4th or 5th now, there is a chance that in future you might get a medal. But, I understand that being too conservative is a difficult decision. When you are close to medal, you don't want to finish just outside medals and wonder what if I had started at a higher weight. She is still young and has the legend Kunjurani Devi as her coach, so she should get stronger from this experience.
Rest of the team is also progressing nicely. I am confident that we will have multiple female lifters in Tokyo.
Satish Sivalingam just edged Vikash Thakur to become our sole male lifter in Rio. He broke his PB in Olympics, which is always a good sign.
In Men's section, we still have to cover a lot of ground. We need a good team of 4-6 lifters to have any chance of qualifying multiple lifters. There are a number of youngsters who are good and have won medals at Junior and Youth World Championships. With proper training, hopefully they will transition to seniors nicely and we would be in hunt for multiple quotas at Tokyo.
Also, a note on those who are talking about how Mirabai would have won medal if she managed to lift equal to what she was lifting in training. In competition, there is tighter body control, so everybody lifts lesser weight compared to training. Also, more pressure in actual competition.
Wrestling:
Before Olympics, I expected 3-4 Freestyle, 2-3 Women's Freestyle and 0-1 Greco-Roman, so needless to say, I was more than happy with the qualification numbers.
Now, before talking about Olympics, let me talk about the run-up to Olympics. Since his silver at London, Sushil was semi-retired and he had participated in only one competition: Gold in CWG. He also had to move up a weight class to 74 kg to accomodate Yogeshwar Dutt in 67 kg (Yogi had won Bronze in 60kg in London). This created a problem as Narsingh was improving greatly in 74kg. Sushil was injured or decided to skip WC in 2015 and Narsingh won the quota in his absence. Wrestling Federation of India, being star struck, promised Sushil a trial in 74 kg without thinking of consequences and going against its past practice. Now, there was a big time gap between WC and other qualifying tournaments, so no other wrestler had a problem with this promise. I think even Narsingh accepted it as fait accompli. But as other wrestlers started qualifying, there were demands for trials in their categories also. WFI now realised that there was no way it could hold a trial for only Sushil vs Narsingh. If it held that trial, it would have to hold trial for all the other quotas as well. Also, there would be additional hassles regarding who all are eligible for trials. So, it backed out of its promise. This angered Sushil and he went to Sports Ministry and courts to get a trial he was promised. By this time, Narsingh realised that WFI didn't want to hold trials and hence, he obviously also kept on insisting that there was no need for trial. There was nothing wrong in Sushil asking for a trial and Narsingh saying no to a trial. Both were correct in their stands. The problem was WFI. It should have declared a fair policy (trial or no trial) before Olympics qualifications began and stuck to it. If this results in Sushil not getting a trial, so be it. If this results in Yogeshwar losing to an unknown wrestler in trial and losing his Olympic berth, so be it. Stick to one policy during a cycle and modify it as needed for the next cycle. The only good thing to come out of this situation was that Sports Ministry (most likely out of fear of disappointing someone) refused to become a party to this decision. They rightly told that it was the job of WFI to select team and not Sports Ministry.
Now, the other issue: Narsingh's positive test. I am not going to go into whether he took drug knowingly or unknowingly. I don't care. WADA rules are clear. He and his support staff hold full responsibility for everything he eats. I always said that once an athlete tests positive, s/he has to undergo a ban, even if conspiracy is proven. Sadly, a large number of supporters were not aware of this (not their fault). This created a huge public support for Narsingh which prompted even politicians to give support to Narsingh. ADDP got swayed by this popular support and gave an emotional decision in favour of Narsingh. This decision greatly eroded its credibility. Even after this decision by ADDP, WFI/IOA/Sports Ministry had a chance to correct the mistake. Someone should have stepped up and said that WADA will appeal the clean chit. CAS will ban Narsingh. Let us do damage control and send someone else. But alas, nobody wanted to take the unpopular stand and become public enemy. Now, conveniently whole blame can shift to foreign WADA/CAS for harassing an honest Indian and denying us a chance to win Olympic medal, when in reality, both were correct in their stand.
Coming to actual Olympics, I never expected anything from our Greco-Roman wrestlers. Qualifying for Olympics itself was a big step for them. From here, we should aim to regularly win medals at Asian level before thinking of Olympics.
In Men's freestyle, we only had 2 wrestlers: Sandeep and Yogeshwar. Both got bad draws. Sandeep faced Russian in first round and Yogeshwar faced Mongol (who would have won bronze if not for last second foolishness). I didn't watch Sandeep's bout so won't comment on it. Yogeshwar looked tired in his bout. It was sad that after winning 2 medals in London, we failed to win a single bout in Men's Freestyle in Rio. But, I feel that the pre-Olympics acrimony had a large role in it.
The amount of progress we have made in Women's Wrestling is amazing. Sakshi showed great mental and physical strength to win multiple bouts after trailing. Its not easy to win a nation's first medal at an Olympics after so many legends and medal hopefuls have failed. Vinesh had a good draw and could have won Bronze (I don't think she could have defeated Eri Tosaka) but alas, she got injured and had to withdraw from the tournament. Phogat sisters have won almost all of our Women's Wrestling medals but failed to win our first Olympic medal. I am sure this will inspire Vinesh to come back stronger and win that elusive Olympic medal for herself, her sisters and her family.
I think both Sushil and Yogeshwar will retire now. So, there will be a great void in our squad going forward. It is upto the youngsters to raise their standard and take Wrestling to the next level. Inspite of the incompetent WFI, I have hope. Sakshi's Bronze will inspire a lot of female wrestlers. We have good coaches (Mahabir Phogat, Satpal Singh and a few more). What we need is more depth in each weight class. Also, we need to work more on the higher weight classes. There are a number of young wrestlers who have shown promise and should improve in future. I hope after retirement, Yogi joins the team in a coaching capacity or opens his own academy. Road ahead is tough but the potential to grow is immense.
Judo:
We are nowhere near Olympic standard. In fact we only manage to win a bronze or two at Asian level. Unless something drastic happens, we will continue to get an Olympic quota (continental quota) and fail to do anything substantial at Olympics.
Swimming:
Our swimmers are improving a lot, especially our women swimmers. But, we are still so far from the top level, that a male swimmer dipping below A standard or female swimmer getting even B standard is a distant dream. Virdhawal, Sajan, Supriyo, Sandeep, Saurabh, Shivani and Maana are doing all they can. Hopefully, they will create the foundation on which future swimmers will achieve something.
Table Tennis:
We were able to qualify 4 paddlers only because of sub-quota for South Asia and withdrawal of top East Asian paddlers from Asian qualifiers. Once again, there is a lot of improvement but still a long distance to cover.
Cycling:
Some of our cyclists are ranked high in UCI World Junior lists (I still don't know how). In Deborah, we have a very good talent and with proper training, she has a decent chance of qualifying for Olympics.
Fencing:
Bhavani came close to qualifying in Rio and hopefully, with more support and experience, will be able to qualify for Tokyo. And inspire other fencers to raise their standard.
Sailing:
We have qualified a boat or two for Olympics in the past. So, there is hope that we will be able to bounce back from this disappointment and again qualify for Olympics (through continental quota).
Volleyball:
Only team sport, apart from hockey, where we have a distant chance of qualifying. Women's team is still very far from top at Asian level and it will take some time before we even talk about Olympic qualification. Men's team is very inconsistent. We have fought well against top Asian teams and struggled against weaker teams in the same competition. Till we get some level of consistency, we have no chance to qualify. But, we are near the top 5 in Asia and are capable of closing the gap. I think before we need to focus on winning a medal at Asian Games first and after that think about Olympics.
As far as other sports are concerned, it will take a miracle (I am looking at you Dipa) to come close to qualifying. Hopefully, someone will force us to dream big and break all the barriers to put some other unknown sport on our radar.
- Jai Hind
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