Fifty Golds in Olympics, Can This Be a Reality for India

At the London Games of 2012, India, a country of 1.2 billion people, won six medals, none of them gold. The United States won 46 golds and 104 medals, China 38 golds and 91 medals, and Britain, with a population of about sixty three million, won 29 golds. India's total of Olympic gold medals since 1900 is nine, of which eight were won by the hockey team between 1928 and 1980, and the ninth came from Abhinav Bindra in air rifle shooting at Beijing in 2008. Against this record the idea of fifty golds seems fantastic. Yet the example of countries that have transformed their results makes the question worth asking in earnest.

The number is itself a measure. At the summer Games of 2012 there were 302 events, and fifty golds would be about a sixth of all the golds awarded. No country has won that many outside the United States, the Soviet Union and China at their peak. To seek fifty means to aim at becoming one of the top three sporting powers in the world. The target can be taken less as a forecast than as a way of asking what India would need to do.

First, why does a vast country win so little? The reasons are well known. A large part of the population is poor, and children suffer from malnutrition, which affects strength and stamina. Facilities are scarce, and a village school often has no playground. Education systems value examinations, and parents view sport as a distraction from a secure career. Coaches are untrained, equipment is expensive and competitions are few. Sports administration is often run by politicians and officials who have no sporting background, with disputes, favouritism and corruption in federations. Sports got a very small share of public funds, and cricket attracts most of the sponsorship, leaving other sports short of money.

Sports administration is often run by politicians and officials who have no sporting background, with disputes, favouritism and corruption in federations.

Second, what have others done? China decided after its poor showing in the 1970s to treat sport as national policy. It built a system of sports schools, which spot talent in children and train them full time, and invested heavily before the Beijing Games of 2008, where it topped the table with 48 golds. The model is effective and also harsh, as it has been criticised for the pressure placed on young children. Britain won one gold in Atlanta in 1996 and finished 36th. It then introduced funding from the National Lottery and set up UK Sport to direct money to sports with medal prospects, and results rose to 29 golds at London in 2012 and 27 at Rio in 2016. Jamaica, with under three million people, dominates sprinting through school athletics competitions that identify talent early. Cuba, a poor country, has won many medals in boxing through a national system of training. The common feature is a pipeline from schools to elite training, backed by money.

Third, what is India doing? The Olympic Gold Quest, a private initiative begun in 2001, has supported athletes like the boxer Mary Kom and the wrestler Sushil Kumar. The government in 2014 started the Target Olympic Podium Scheme for the Olympics, which gives funds to the most promising athletes. Sports academies, the Sports Authority of India centres and the Commonwealth Games of 2010, held in Delhi, left some facilities, though the scandals about their organisation overshadowed them. The six medals of 2012, India's best, showed a growing base, in shooting, wrestling, boxing and badminton. Private sponsors and leagues have started to support sports other than cricket.

What would be needed for fifty? A long list suggests itself. Child nutrition and school sport must be improved, since a talent that is stunted by hunger will not reach the podium. A national system for finding talent among children, with simple fitness tests in every school, can expand the pool, as in the Chinese and Jamaican models. Trained coaches, sports scientists, medical support and modern equipment need to be provided, along with better stadiums and a calendar of competitions. Athletes need financial security, jobs and prestige, to stay in sport. Federations must be governed transparently by sportspeople. India's tradition in field hockey, wrestling, archery and kabaddi can be built upon, and its demographic weight is a latent advantage.

The timescale matters. Countries that rose did so over twenty years or more, and the early years were of investment with little to show. A realistic plan would set intermediate targets, such as ten golds in 2024 and twenty five by 2036, and would be judged on the evidence of rising numbers of finalists and world ranked athletes. Winning in individual sports such as athletics, swimming, gymnastics and shooting, which together account for a large share of golds, is more promising than in team games where the competition is deep. It is also true that the number of Olympic medals is only one measure of a nation's sporting health. Participation by ordinary people, fitness and the pleasure of play are goals in their own right, and champions grow from such soil.

Women's sport deserves special attention. Mary Kom, Saina Nehwal and Karnam Malleswari, who won a bronze in weightlifting in 2000, have shown that Indian women can compete at the top level, often against greater odds than men. Female athletes face restrictions at home, the lack of safe training venues and prejudice. A number of golds could be added by encouraging girls to take up sport in schools. Half of the nation's potential has hardly been tapped.

There are those who ask whether the pursuit of medals is a vanity, when millions lack toilets and schools. The answer given by sporting nations is that the two are linked. Sport builds health, discipline and national spirit, and an investment in children's fitness repays itself in other ways. A country that sets itself the target of fifty golds would need to improve the lives of its children first.

The target will either be missed by a large margin or achieved by a methodical change in how the nation treats its children. The first is likelier on the evidence. But the child who will win the first of those fifty is already alive, perhaps running to school barefoot on a path that nobody has timed, and whether she is ever found is a matter of policy, not luck.