Mediocrity in the strides

For so many years have Indian athletes shown themselves to be satisfied with the perks of participation rather than the rewards of performance that it no longer causes comment. A lifetime train pass, free telephone calls, a plot of land, apparent incentives meant to encourage the athlete to go faster, higher and stronger actually act as roadblocks to effort when a performer is too easily satisfied.

In most events therefore — and the Commonwealth Games is not likely to be an exception but for the fact that the field is not the strongest — the goal is not to win, but to top the personal best. The gold, silver and bronze are left to those who train for them physically and mentally, but for most Indian athletes, the competition has a much narrower focus. This middle class attitude to sporting contests persists.

India’s first woman medal winner at the Olympics, Karnam Malleswari said after her bronze-winning effort at Sydney that she had lifted 10kgs more in a previous competition but did not push for gold because “my coaches and I decided to play it safe.” The bronze in hand was worth a speculative two in the bush for a country which had not seen too much of either metal at the Olympics. Lack of success breeds such insecurity.

In the 400m at the same Games, Beenamol timed 51.51 in the first heats. This dropped to 51.8 in the next, and finally to 52.04 in the semifinals. She was a spent force rather soon. “We are not used to running three days in a row,” she said. The winner of that gold, Cathy Freeman progressed from 51.63 in the heats to 49.11 in the final. The trick in the heats, as the Formula One champion Niki Lauda said about his own sport, “is to win while going at the slowest speed.”

There is a simple way to check how far behind the world India are in specific events. Take the 100 metres, for example. The Indian record is 10.3 seconds, attained in 2005. That timing was achieved by the Canadian Percy Williams in 1930. India trail by 75 years in that event! Forget about Usain Bolt and his 9.58 of last year.

At the Athens Olympics in 2004, K M Binu clocked 45.48 in the 400 metres, a mark achieved by Louis Jones (US) 49 years earlier. Sri Ram Singh’s Montreal Olympics performance of 1976 continues to tease Indian 800 metre runners. But that mark had already been breached 21 years earlier in 1955. Wilson Kipketer’s current record is more than four and a half minutes faster.

The great Jesse Owens was, in 1935, already doing 8.08 in the
long jump, a full 69 years before Amrit Pal Singh made it the national mark in 2004.

It would be easy to blame the sportsmen and women. But they are part of a system that rewards mediocrity. The system is geared towards producing gracious losers, not aggressive winners. And in the year of the Commonwealth Games, thanks to the official shenanigans, the focus has not been on the athletes anyway.