View from afar: India’s sporting sphere can only get bigger now, thanks to Neeraj & Co

India’s Neeraj Chopra with his javelin gold medal at the Tokyo Olympic Games on August 7. Pic/Getty Images

Many Indian expats I speak to ponder the dismal performance of the Indian athletes in the 2020 Olympics. After all, they say, 1.3 billion people and just seven medals. Pessimism and perplexity abound amongst them. At the same time, Indians in India are encouraged by their athletes' performance and their level of optimism for future medals is high.

So what are the 'desi' Indians looking at that the overseas Indians may not appreciate? The answer to that question lies in the remarks of current Indian Olympic winners as well as the developments that have taken place in India, thanks in no small part to the support and inspiration of earlier generations of champions. Let's start by considering the comments and backgrounds of a few of our latest Olympians and medal winners.

Bronze medalist PV Sindhu of Team India poses with national flag at the Tokyo Olympic Games on August 1. Pic/Getty Images

"Gaad diya Papa lath," said Neeraj Chopra to his father over the phone after he won India's first ever Olympics gold medal for his athletic skill in a javelin event. Translated from Haryani to English, his statement means something like, "I have done something that cannot be undone," or, in short, "I have left a mark." Unlike most of India's earlier star athletes, who came from upper or middle class or military families in large cities, Chopra, a subedar in the Indian Army, is from Chandra village in the Panipat district of Haryana. He thanked Abhinav Bindra, a 2008 gold medallist in 10-metre air rifling, for showing him the path to win the Olympic gold. He also credited his German coach, Klaus Bartonietz, whose presence shows that Indian athletes now benefit from the insight of experienced coaches, both foreign and local.

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Mirabai Chanu, a railway employee of Lumding Railway Division in Assam who is 4' 11" tall and weighs 108 Lbs, praised the truck drivers who help her travel 14 miles to her training site at 6 am on the days she trains. She won a silver Olympic medal in the women's 49 kg weight lifting category at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. She also thanked her mother, and her coach, Vijay Sharma.

The writer Anil Nayar

Manpreet Singh, the son of a landless laborer from Mithapur village near Jullandur and the captain of the bronze medal-winning Indian hockey team, said his big dream is "to win big for India" and his biggest goal is to "inspire youngsters to play a sport, any sport."

Hyderabad-born PV Sindhu, the bronze medalist in badminton, was coached under the tutelage of another foreigner, the Korean Park Tae-Sang. In addition, she trained at the Gopichand Badminton Academy, a centre of excellence in Hyderabad. And just before the Olympics, she moved her practice of the sport to the Gachibowli indoor stadium in Hyderabad to get used to playing amid spectatorless stands. The intensity and variety of her training underscores her commitment to excel.

Six-time world champion MC Mary Kom, who was born in Kangathei village in rural Manipur and lost in the round of 16 at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, along with former world champ and Asian Games medalist Sarita Devi - both pioneers among the first generation of Indian women boxers - have taken the veteran-athlete's clichéd promise of "giving it back" and turned it into a reality by establishing the Mary Kom Regional Boxing Foundation with an academy in Imphal. They have made Manipur into a boxing hotbed! The academy also provides free training to boys and girls from underprivileged backgrounds who aspire to make a mark in the sport.

Some similarities exist amongst the athletes highlighted above:

1. Most, along with many other star Olympics athletes, come from small towns - like Jhansal, Jodhkhan, Khudun, Sirsa, Shahbad, Lalremsiami, and Zira. Few in India or elsewhere would recognise these names. And most of these elite athletes grew up with role models, including Indian cricketers, badminton players, hockey players, weight lifters, and boxers from similar towns and villages. The youth in these areas are able to dream, to dream big and feel they can cross barriers through sport and possibly enrich themselves in the process, just as their role models have done. They represent the athletes that emerge from "the wealth at the bottom of the pyramid," a concept that comes from a book entitled with the same phrase written by CK Prahalad. The hunger to excel amongst this demographic is far greater than that of middle class youth.

2. Their skills have been honed in public and private sports institutions. Such institutions, which are very necessary for the growth of a sport, have increased in number over the past decade or so, but not at the speed and quality required to really build excellence and help athletes ascend to fame. More private/corporate participation would go a long way toward providing the essentials required for athletes to excel: a space for fellow athletes to congregate, to be guided by the finest coaches, to compete with one another and with overseas players. It is heartening to consider the centres of excellence in Bangalore or Hyderabad or Delhi or the Inspire Institute of Sport run by the Jindal group and many others run by former athletes. It is also heartening to learn of experienced foreign and Indian coaches engaged in Indian sportspeople's careers and their success.

Think about how many more Indian Olympians the country might produce if more high-level centres for excellence were developed throughout India. For these are the institutions that create a "terroir" that can nurture and grow talent and establish the infrastructure through which superb athletes are made. This is not dissimilar to the creation of institutes of academic excellence, such as IITs and medical schools like the All India Institute of Medical Science, for which India is so well known.

3. They're supported not only by institutions but by also private/public funding and, thanks to the social media, an emerging level of fame and prospective sponsorship fortune. A financial incentive is essential to pull in players from all areas and so it now does. Take a look at what happened to cricket once money came into play. Mumbai lost dominance as the talent provider after higher salaries supplied by the Indian Premier League lured "hungrier" players from small towns and villages in search of fame and wealth.

We have already seen the results of higher financial rewards for hockey players at the 2020 Olympics, where India finally won a medal after a gap of 41 years. Manpreet's net worth is estimated at $1-$5 million, all gained through his success in hockey; it won't be long before other top hockey players in the professional league will become wealthy, too. Others make healthy livings as sports stars as well. Sindhu's net worth is approximately $5 million.

A well-endowed professional Indian soccer league is also in the works. With professional leagues comes a congregation of talent from Indian cities, towns, and villages and from overseas. A lot of confidence, experience, and much-needed compensation - all essential ingredients to produce champions - is gained from such sports leagues.

The theory that Indians are culturally not attuned to winning in sport (a byproduct of long colonial rule and often supported by Indians over 50 years of age) has been debunked since the 1970s or ‘80s by the likes of Wilson Jones, MC Mary Kom, Sunil Gavaskar, Abhinav Bindra, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, the new gold medalist Neeraj Chopra, and many, many others.

Legendary cricketer Sunil Gavaskar stated in a recent interview that Indian athletes are in the midst of a new era, or perhaps he should say a new inning. Organic growth overall, fast growth where there is support from professionally run institutions, and, yes, money and fame are all at the heart of this momentum. Reaching the pinnacle of a sport takes time, and to build depth in a sport may take a decade or more. The pardesi Indians should be patient and, if they'd like to accelerate the process, they might consider participating in the making of more Olympian champions by funding and/or devoting time and energy to the sports institutions that can help athletes excel. Imagine if the likes of Satya Nadella or Sundar Pichai or Ajay Banga or many other Indian-origin CEOSs were to apply their minds and money to help the Olympic cause in a land of 1.3 billion people? The possibilities are vast!

A former champion squash player and Arjuna Award recipient, Anil Nayar has won national titles around the globe. In 2018, he was inducted into the US Squash Hall of Fame and he currently serves on the board of Khelshala, an NGO in Chandigarh that uplifts India's poorest children through sport. Lucky - Anil Nayar's Story: A Portrait of a Legendary Squash Champion, a biographical memoir on his life and sports career, was published last year.