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Olympic medals look cute too
But little did I know that my epiphany had already dawned on China four years earlier. Obsessed with proving their country’s mettle at sports as if their economic growth wasn’t enough, the authorities embarked on what is now known as Project 119. The number 119 refers to the “number of golds given out at the 2000 Games in the medal-rich sports of track and field, swimming, rowing, sailing and canoe/kayak.” While most of us might not be aware but swimming & track and field alone account for nearly 88 golds. Mind you, the United States topped the medal tally last time with only 36 golds so you can imagine the immense potential in focusing your energies on few select events if winning golds is your ultimate objective. There are a total of 302 gold medals at stake at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games with 47 in Track & Field, 34 in swimming, 18 in gymnastics, 18 in wrestling, 18 in cycling, 16 in canoeing, 15 in shooting, and 15 in weightlifting among others [image source].
When China first entered the Olympics in 1984, they were already favorites in table tennis, diving, badminton and gymnastics because those were their traditional strengths. No wonder they first opened the doors to their country with the help of ping-pong diplomacy because they knew they could win. With the help of an authoritarian regime that is almost perfect for honing athletes to win at the Olympics, China has steadily increased its medal hopes in other disciplines like shooting, weight lifting, and athletics. It is not surprisingly expected to surpass the United States in the medal tally this year (they are leading right now with 13 golds). Is Project 119 succeeding? Definitely so. China has not only made inroads into sports they weren’t adept in the recent past but have also maintained their stranglehold on their traditional strengths.
Focusing on individual events in lieu of team sports has also paid rich dividends simply because it is easier and efficient to invest in individual talent rather than build a team. There are plenty of events focused on inviduals and India has only lately woken up to the rich medal haul that such events can generate. Except for their hockey golds that now seem from a distant era, most of our medals have also come from individual events (two in shooting now).
Also, technology and globalization has closed the gap between nations enabling previously-developing nations to catch up with erstwhile superpowers based solely on focused investment. The fact that redesigned swimwear that makes Phelps fish-like doesn’t mean that other countries cannot reverse-engineer or simply copy that technology thus leveling the playing field. However it ultimately boils down to hard work, dedication, and training which in effect is also arises from freedom from other restriction like having to simultaneously earn your livelihood. In his words, all Phelps admits doing is eat, sleep, and swim. Creating that nurturing environment that helps your athletes in focusing on their sports is what makes the difference in those last few nano-seconds of a close race. Bindra, India’s gold-medal winner had the luxury of being rich enough to afford his discipline and having a shooting range at home so I’m sure that counted for something.
Although I’m no fan of China’s artifically and painstakingly-created perfection, it has a lesson for India. If India is indeed serious about winning medals in future Olympics, it is time authorities devised a strategy to achieve those goals either by the U.S. corporate sponsorship route or China state-driven sports programs. Why should we is a topic for another time.
by Patrix | on Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 at 3:32 pm | 
Governance, Sports . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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August 12th, 2008 at 4:02 pm reply
Project 119? I would be really happy if we created a Project 10 and won 5 medals for starters! Secondly, I think most of our Indian contingent consisted of individual sports - tennis, shooting, boxing among others. Guess we figured much earlier, due to our limited (no, measly) resources, we can only feed individual events.
Karnam malleshwari’s medal, Paes’s medal, Rathore’s medal and now, Abhinav’s medal - we have seen it for the past 12 years and nothing, nothing has changed. The system is too screwed up - and unless we have private investments (and boards, like the one Mittal did recently), I don’t have any hope of one gold medal radically changing the mindset of the rest of Sports Authority of India.
We didn’t respect the hockey team when they won a medal in Asia cup, we couldn’t supply shuttlecocks to the badminton team when they wanted to practise badly for Olympics - but we do have time, money and resources to send more number of officials than the players to the Olympics to ‘oversee’ things - such irony!
Rant done - one last thing though - no sports channel wanted to broadcast Olympics in India, only DD is doing it and not very surprisingly, we didn’t raise a hue and cry. However, if it was cricket that was telecast only by the DD, then we all would have written hundreds of blog posts talking about the bad commentary, pathetic telecast, innumerable ads and what not! The day we see a sports channel wanting to telecast something other than cricket, we can be rest assured that that particular sport is on the rise.
August 12th, 2008 at 6:43 pm reply
Kiran, admittedly Project 119 is a tall order for us considering that we don’t haven’t been traditionally strong in anything (except hockey but we dare not mention that now). China is not satisfied with the golds they win in the events they are strong in but initiated Project 119 to win golds in events they hadn’t. So in effect, it is a long-term strategy. Aim higher and you’ll at least win 30 if not 119 golds :)
Ditto on the hockey and badminton mentality. But the quicker the athletes come to terms with the fact that they aren’t going to be as popular as cricket, the better it is. I rather have them pursue the Olympic dream as a personal milestone rather than doing something for the country. Lack of facilities is unpardonable but this is where corporate sponsorship comes in. Athletes need better managers to sell them and make them more attractive to corporates.
The telecast trouble is a catch-22. Although it helps, I don’t think televising a sport makes it more popular. To be frank, the 10m air rifle sport that Bindra won is not particularly exciting to watch on TV as gymnastics or swimming is.
August 12th, 2008 at 8:50 pm reply
(a bit of ranting to follow)
As you say, it is a bit of Catch-22, a vicious circle.
The reason private broadcasters do not want to telecast the Olympics is obviously because of lack of sponsorship (or rather, better sponsorship being available for what they are now showing). This, in turn, is because people are not interested in watching the games, hence the advertisers are not interested in sponsorship. And that’s because they are not interested in these sports.
Lets face it: we Indians (in general) look down upon sporting achievements. We consider them far less substantial than say, academic ones. Hence the saying “kheloge koodoge to ho-oge kharab, padhoge likhoge to banoge nawab” (”if you play sports, you will get ruined, if you study hard, you will become a champion”). As long as this mindset continues, our hopes can only be tied to individual determination and brilliance.
The govt. sporting programmes (scholarships, training etc.) are full of children from poor families who join these programmes to escape from their poverty (this is from my first-hand experience of meeting these kids). The middle-class, in general, is disdainful of sports.
The only way to break this vicious circle is for individual sportsmen to set examples with their performance. If you’ve noticed, Tennis has enjoyed quite a surge in the last decade or so, and it can be attributed to the success of Paes, Bhupati and now Sania. There are a lot more tennis courts in Indian cities. Ditto for interest in F-1 and Golf, which I don’t remember reading about in Indian papers before NK/Jeev erupted on the scene. Chess has pretty much the same story - number of GMs from India rose exponentially after Vishy’s success.
This is how Cricket gained ascendancy as well. The thing with Cricket was timing - everything came together at once. The opposite was the tragedy with Hockey.
The lesson here is not merely to shrug our shoulders and blame individuals who don’t win. The rest of the stuff has to be in place as well - media, sponsors, government, societal mindset. I am quite optimistic about our prospects because an increasingly-prosperous middle-class is bound to participate in sports more and more as its survival concerns diminish (which is the reason for sports being looked down on).
Short of govt.’s overwhelming focus on sports (like in China, where the govt. is not answerable for its priorities), individual persistence and societal growth is the only way. We’ll get there. Just wait. The great philosopher Russel Peters once said, in future we’ll all be beige ;-) For similar reasons, increasingly, gold medals will go to China and India in future.
August 12th, 2008 at 11:27 pm reply
Vivek, as you mentioned the attitude toward sports being a ‘time waste’ as most Indian parents would put it is largely to blame. I’m not sure if I’m as optimistic as you are regarding medal prospects but yup, opening up of opportunities has certainly helped.
But in the intensely competitive world of Olympics, merely indulging in a sport will not guarantee victory. As we see from the countless tales of Olympic athletes, dedication and intense training often separates the wheat from the chaff. Until the medal aspirants will have that leeway and institutional and familial support, I don’t see us hauling in the medals like China does.
Personally, I prefer the U.S. model to the China one.