Indian sport set for a big leap

The growing popularity of Olympic sport is a happy augury. The difference between 2004 and 2012 is obvious. Support is coming not only from the government but also from the media, corporates and people at large. It is very heartening. India's 2012 Olympic contingent is the largest ever.

For a sportsperson, adulation and recognition are the fuel and once that starts coming, a lot of other factors that impact sporting standards come into play.

But the size of the contingent does not necessarily mean more medals. I have always maintained that there is a difference between skill and performance. Skill is physical and performance is mental. At the highest level of sport, the pressure to perform is intense. In the Olympics, an athlete faces competitors who have all been waiting for almost four years for this day.

In today's environment, one of the best forms of soft power projection is sports. We should be  happy that Olympic sport is receiving greater attention and our sportspersons are getting better in terms of both quality and quantity. Obviously, we cannot match the best nations of the world yet. But I think what we can compete against is the standards that we set last time. I certainly believe and hope that we will do even better this time.

We have some athletes who are world class. But such world-class athletes are only a handful. It would be most incorrect to put a number to India's medal tally.  The London Olympics, as far India is concerned, might belong to the women. I feel, realistically speaking, we should be content with six medals.

The disciplines that have the potential to bring us medals are archery, boxing, shooting, badminton and wrestling. In athletics and weight-lifting, we have an outside chance. If the Indian hockey team finishes on the podium then we should be on cloud nine. But it is too much of an optimistic thought. We just hope for a great fight in the Olympics but realistically we may not be on the podium.
 

Now, coming to my own game, shooting, I passed my military course as the best sportsperson. I have played all sports and I follow all sports. I took to shooting quite late – at the age of 28. In the last two Olympics, shooting got a shot in the arm. But in this Olympics, I feel shooting might get eclipsed by boxing and archery, or by other events. We have four shooters who have the potential to make it to the podium. I see Gagan Narang, Abhinav Bindra, Ronjan Sodhi and Vijay Kumar as  medal prospects.

The reactions I read in different places say that my Silver medal in Athens broke the myth of Indians being underachievers. We suddenly moved from the erstwhile one medal to three medals. Before 2004, all Olympic athletes, if I may say so, were looked down upon as people who could bring only disrepute to the country. There was a general attitude that Indian athletes went to the Olympics to have fun because they always returned empty-handed.
But after 2004, people started believing we could win an Olympic Gold. After 2008, we are now talking numbers. We are discussing without any second thoughts how many medals we can get from the Olympics. The solitary silver medal in Athens helped change the public perception.

It got belief injected into the Indian mindset. I do remember some of the athletes' relatives speaking to my wife after the Olympics in Athens and saying that "your husband" has reignited self-belief among Indian sportspersons.

Because of the platform the Olympic Games provides, because of the huge attention it attracts from spectators and the media, its extremely important for an athlete to believe that he has the right to be on the podium. And that belief, with skill, nerve and mind control, can make all the difference.

When I see somebody going to the Olympics, I feel it is a big responsibility that the person carries on his shoulders. I cannot relate myself to a sportsperson who says that he is going to the Games only to gather experience.

When I travelled to Athens, I was already in that zone by cutting myself off from all thoughts of victory and defeat. By the time I went to the podium, I could see the jubilation all around. I had the tricolour in my bag from the very outset. I hid it in my bag so that people could not see that I was carrying a flag in anticipation of a podium finish. I believed that I would be on the podium.

You only win with your mind. Thoughts become words, words become action, action becomes behaviour, behaviour becomes character. If you are satisfied with what you are, then you will not grow. But it does not mean technique is not required. Good technique obviously has to be in place. So it is the mind, applied with the support of proper technique, that keeps the doubts away.

But despite self-belief, an athlete cannot always be sure of a podium finish. In a sportsperson's, life there are more failures than successes. But a true champion is one who after falling down gets up and moves ahead. It is extremely painful if you miss a medal by a whisker. Your mind rues the narrow misses along the way.

A true hero is a person who never gives up. The podium is small. Not everyone can be a winner but the will not to give up can be demonstrated by the runner-ups too. A true champion is the guy who never ever gives up, not the person who always wins.

Now an increasing number of such sportspersons are coming up in our country. Our sporting culture is changing. I am really glad to see that many parents are beginning to believe that sports can be a full-time career. I have a feeling that in the next ten years or so, Indian sports will undergo a sea-change.

India is indeed on the way to becoming a sporting country. It is a combination of several factors that is bringing about this change: Greater media attention, the improving skills of our sportspersons and the fan following for real-life heroes.
The corporates are coming out to back Olympic sport because people have started to value these disciplines. True national pride is now attached to Olympic sport because it comes sans money; because it is played for pride, pure and simple and, of course, for a medal for the country. Nothing can ever match that feeling. 

As told to Ajay Rana and Mayank Singh