Sometimes a foreign sensibility is needed to acutely feel the discrepancies and faults of a nation. “In India, when you win, you are everything and when you lose, you are nothing,” said Dutch coach Sjoerd Marijne, the Indian women’s hockey team that created history at the Tokyo Olympics. The girls entered the Olympic semi-finals for the first time and showed tremendous fighting spirit to get there. PM Narendra Modi—whose government has put renewed emphasis on ‘beti’ (girl child)—called on hockey girls to console them for missing out on a bronze medal. When Kendra won India’s record seven medals at Tokyo 2020, women athletes like PV Sindhu, Mirabai Chanu, Lovlina Borgohain, Rani Rampal and Vinesh Phogat enjoyed the limelight at the PM’s party on Independence Day. But many well-known athletes from the Indian contingent were cast into shadow. Leading up to the Games, much-hyped shooters and archers were expected to lead the race for India’s ‘double-digit’ run. Fifteen shooters and four archers, all world class, took a blank in Tokyo.
In fact, in this hour of postmortem, the National Rifle Association of India and the Archery Association of India are under the scanner for the poor performance of their athletes. Returns from two consecutive Olympics have been zero, despite the government spending hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ money on months-long camps, foreign coaches and perks in Europe. Given their world ranking and international stature, our shooters and archers were the most loved in Tokyo. performed at the bottom.
“Winning World Cup gold does not guarantee you a place in the Olympic final. The Olympics doesn’t mean what you’ve done in the past. They are about what day you can handle the pressure and shoot well,” explains former rifle shooter Gagan Narang, who won a bronze medal at London 2012.
Unlike an archery team rich in experience—Deepika Kumari and Tarundeep Rai in their third Olympics, while Atanu Das in his second—the shooting squad had 11 debuts. While the pressure on young Manu Bhaker, Saurabh Chaudhary, Elavenil Valarivan or Yashaswini Deswal is understandable, Deepika’s persistent failure at the Olympics has triggered a serious search for an explanation.
Dealing with pressure is important in the Olympics, but it’s not the only reason shooters and archers fail. “There were loads of expectations… and when the PM and the President call to congratulate you and the media, which usually focuses on cricket, exaggerates all this, the pressure goes up 100 times. It was blatantly obvious… the heart and pulse rates of our archers on monitors in Tokyo showed their excited states. With so much external pressure, how does one focus in a game where the difference between winning and losing is in decimal? The former archer looks at Sanjeev Singh.
However, before the external pressure, there was significant external support and, unfortunately, terrible mismanagement. After Rio 2016, the government spent heavily, while corporates got involved in the quest for an Olympic medal. National federations are responsible for talent development, but what if they turn into money-making rackets? The NRAI has ordered an inquiry into the failures in Tokyo, but insiders say the federation itself is to blame for creating bad blood among coaches who are rumored to be motivated by a lust for money. Not from Olympic glory.
“If it is a failure, it is a collective failure. Not just the coaches – shooters, support staff, personal coaches and the NRAI need to share the responsibility,” says Narang, his 2012 Olympic teammate Vijay Kumar, who Surprised everyone with a silver in London, pointing to the real problem – the ubiquitous conflict of interest.
Several instructors who travel to Tokyo with 15 shooters run private shooting academies. NRAI has been promoting former shooters as coaches – most running academies, offering specialized coaching at hefty prices and forging tie-ups with equipment manufacturers, especially Swiss and German pistol makers. Every coach wants a shooter from his academy to win an Olympic medal. The financial gain is huge. Apart from winning government incentives and awards like Dronacharya, this is the biggest advertisement for Akademi and Gundadhari. Several former shooters also hold NRAI positions and are agents of gun and ammunition manufacturers. “It is a troupe. A powerful group has taken control, a lot of money has been exchanged and there is no team spirit,” says an NRAI insider. “This commercialization of shooting is a big issue. When we went to London we had only two foreign coaches, one each in pistol and rifle. They gave us instructions and we trained accordingly. There was no personal equation… no conflict of interest,” Vijay Kumar says.
wide shooting
Shooters from left to right Elavenil Valarivan, Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Chaudhary
AP. Photo by
We can be hopeful of Paris 2024 if NRAI can stop the inner rot and give shooters the direction and peace of mind they need, believes Vijay Kumar. “We should start building a core group, shortlist shooters who can win quota for Paris and keep monitoring their performance,” says Narang, who runs a private academy but is not a coach. .
The problem with developing archeology is a mix of conflicts of interest and an inability to adapt to the latest scientific systems. “For 40 years, we didn’t have the science to back up our archers. They have tremendous skill, but fall short against players who are the product of the scientific process and are more mentally stable when playing the big points,” explains Sanjiva Singh. The process of placing archers through a proper system is only beginning in India, with a High Performance Center at Sonepat, Haryana.
“We need 20 Deepika Kumaris and 20 Atanu Das. If one or two players have dominated Indian archery, there is either a lack of talent or a huge gap in the administration,” says Singh. There is no dearth of talent, it has been proved. India won a record 15 medals (eight gold, two silver and five bronze) at the recently concluded World Archery Youth Championships in Wroclaw (Poland). Komalika Bari was an exceptional archer who won gold medals in both cadet and junior recurve. “Along with Parth Sushant Salunkhe, Komalika is a good bet for mixed events,” says Singh.
AAI is now thinking ahead of Dipika and Atanu. India is sending a youth team to the World Championships to be held in South Dakota, USA in September. None of the four Olympians made the cut. He lost the trial after returning from Tokyo. “Over the years the likes of Dipika and Atanu have fixed things at AAI. The youth did not get the exposure they deserved. They were actually controlling the system. Now everything is about to change as we find the scientific path and prepare for Paris 2024,” says Singh.
The story of shooting and archery may be just the tip of an iceberg – a system that stinks of one-off humiliation and corruption. SAI has to make deep penetration in all sports federations, even the Indian Olympic Association. All the good photos from last week look good, but in order to outperform 48th place in Tokyo, the Indian Games will need to clean up their Augean stables.
(It appeared in the print edition as “Duds, Suds and Missed Marks”)
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