Commonwealth Games 2018 | Celebrate, but keep perspective: Viren Rasquinha

For me, there were several good things to come out of this Commonwealth Games (CWG) for India.

First, of course, is the vastly improved performance from the 2014 Glasgow Games, in terms of gold medals and overall number of medals. It's a massive improvement, especially when it comes to gold medals.

The second aspect is that we shouldn't just see the number of medals, but more importantly analyse the quality of performances. There were many top-class performances by Indians in the CWG.

Take, for example, Neeraj Chopra. His throw would've fetched him a bronze at 2016 Rio Olympics. Mirabai Chanu's lift would've fetched her a silver at Rio. Manu Bhaker shot a world-class score, and would've been in the finals of the last three Olympics. Apurvi Chandela didn't win gold, but her qualification score would've set a world record in the old scoring format.

Apart from these very measurable sports, you had the likes of PV Sindhu, Saina Nehwal, Bajrang and Vinesh doing well.

So, there were several personal performances that were very, very impressive.

Young & happening

The next thing I would like to touch upon is the quality of youngsters showing up. Twenty-one athletes who have won medals are 23 or below (not taking into account the team medals in TT and badminton).

That's a big number who are very young, right from Mirabai to Vinesh to Anish Bhanwala to Manu Bhaker to Mehuli Ghosh to Satwik Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty to Neeraj to Divya Kakran and the others.

That's a really good bunch of youngsters coming in, and it shows that the health of these sports is really good in the longer run of not just the 2020 Olympics, but also 2024 and 2028 Games.

We're throwing up youngsters across sports, and for me the one common factor in all of them is the self-belief.

Youngsters today believe that they can not just compete but also win medals at the highest level a lot more than when my generation was 19 or 20. That's the biggest change I see in the last 10 years.

Sports that surprised

In terms of sport-wise performances, shooting, wrestling, weightlifting were expected to do well. But what impressed me the most is three sports:

1. Badminton: That's not because of the two singles events, because Saina, Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth were expected to reach the finals. But what I'm really impressed with is the mixed team event. We have never beaten Malaysia in our history, and we have never won CWG gold in mixed team event. To do something that has never been done before is great.

Same thing with the men's doubles, where we've never done well in doubles, never been to the finals. So, what Satwik and Chirag have done at such a young age is commendable, and full marks to doubles coach Tan Him Her, who has changed training routine, techniques, belief and everything else when it comes to doubles in India.

2. TT: Again, women's team event, never won a gold before. Singles, never won gold, Manika Batra did it. So, that's been really impressive. With Batra winning four medals, she's become the new breakout star of this CWG.

Twelve years back, Indian badminton was in the same position. When I took part in the 2006 Melbourne Games, I saw a 16-year-old Saina Nehwal. At that time, no one would've thought that Indian badminton would reached the heights of today. And who knows, maybe TT is today where badminton was 12 years ago. And maybe TT can repeat what badminton has done to sports in India in the future.

3. Boxing: Nine medals in boxing was a fantastic achievement. Apart from proven champions like Mary Kom, the likes Gaurav Solanki and Manish Kaushik dished out top-class performances.

If you look at Rio two years back, the big change I see in boxing is that one: they've really improved the quality of coaches, with Rafaele Bergamasco and Santiago Nieva doing an extremely good job. And two: the amount of exposure they're giving to not just the top boxer but also the second, third and fourth best boxers in every weight categories. As a result of which no boxer can take his place for granted in the team even if he is the best in that weight category, which was the case some years ago. Today, everyone is one their toes.

The biggest disappointment

The men's hockey has been the single biggest disappointment of this CWG. We never looked consistent throughout the tournament, not in a single game did we put 60 good minutes, except perhaps in the last league match against England.

There were too many passengers in this team, people who were invisible over six matches. This just cannot be acceptable in a big tournament like this. I can count a handful of players who did reasonably well: Harmanpreet Singh, SV Sunil, Manpreet Singh, Mandeep Singh, PR Sreejesh and to a small extent Dilpreet Singh. These were the only people who performed, everyone else was average or below. You can get a medal with one or two average performances, but if there are 10 people not performing, how can you expect to win medals? There were just too many people who did not pull their weight in men's hockey, and they will need to pull up their socks.

Women's hockey, I would still say they performed reasonably well. I watched all their matches in Rio, and I was extremely disappointed with the performances there. In this CWG, their fitness, their skill levels and their strength levels have definitely improved. Take away the scoreline from the last game, where they lost 0-6 to England, the women I thought did very well in this CWG. Under Harendra Singh, I definitely feel that the women's hockey team is improving and is on the right track.

'Cautious optimism'

Having said all these things, it is imperative that we don't get carried away by this performance. 'Cautious optimism' is the term I'd like to use here. Yes, we have to be happy, but we have to keep the bigger picture in sight: Olympic medals. Understand and analyse benchmarks to achieve those bigger goals.

For example, in weightlifting, among all the medals that we have won, only one person, Mirabai Chanu, would've won an Asian Games medals. In shooting, it's actually tougher to qualify for the Indian team in international events than to win a CWG medal, because there is so much healthy competition. Ditto with boxing now.

So, we have to keep perspective. We have toanalyse performances, and not get carried away just by the number of medals. Let's not go over the top and celebrate with this CWG show because that removes hunger from athletes.

Asian Games, the real test

All in all, this CWG has given a lot of hope and optimism for the future of Indian sport. But I believe the true test will come at the Asian Games.

If you see weightlifting at the Asian Games, India has never won a gold. In boxing you'll have countries like Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, which are really strong at the Asian level. In shooting, you have China. In badminton you have China, Korea and Japan, which is the new powerhouse in world badminton. In TT you have all these countries.

So, that will be a far bigger test and a reality check for us to see where we stand on a more global scale.

We should be happy, we should celebrate this performance. But we will also have to keep improving. For me, the target for India has to be 10 Olympic medals, to get into double figures. The day we get there, I'll be happy. Until then, these are all stepping stones.

-- Viren Rasquinha is a former India hockey captain with 180 international caps who participated in the 2004 Athens Olympics. He is currently the CEO of Olympic Gold Quest. He spoke with Rutvick Mehta