There is a justifiable sense of satisfaction at India’s best-ever medal haul at the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, with a tally of 14 gold, 17 silver and 33 bronze, but the achievement also calls for a reality check. While the 101 medals at the Delhi Commonwealth Games raised the expectations to unrealistic heights, Guangzhou firmly showed India’s position in the Asian pecking order that China led with 416 medals, followed by South Korea (232) and Japan (216). Regardless of the individual success stories, the fact remains that there are still mountains to climb and streams to ford for India to achieve greater glory at the highest levels, which are the Olympics and the World Championships. India fared better than expected in athletics while medals in tennis, kabaddi, cue sports and boxing were no surprise. The biggest disappointments were in hockey (one bronze), chess (two bronze), wrestling (three bronze) and shooting (one gold, three silver and four bronze). For a contingent of 626, participating in 37 of the 42 disciplines, the medal haul appears rather meagre with medals in 18 disciplines and gold in just seven. The government should get choosier in clearing sportspersons for such events.
The authorities and various coaches would be quick to point out that the back-to-back competitions with the Asian Games following within weeks of the Commonwealth Games, affected the performances. Nothing can be further from the truth if one were to go by the medals that our athletes won. The likes of Ashwini Chidananda, Preeja Sreedharan, Joseph Abraham, Sudha Singh and the women’s 4x400 relay squad exceeded expectations by winning gold medals in athletics as did oarsman Bajrang Lal Thakar who despite inadequate training facilities won India’s first-ever gold in rowing. These were success stories that again highlighted the fact that they triumphed not because of the system, but in spite of it. However, the performance graph of shooters, wrestlers, archers and hockey teams dipped alarmingly in the face of stiffer competition than the one they faced in Delhi in October.
Guangzhou put on a show that raised the benchmark in organising a multi-sport event. The conduct of the Games and infrastructure cost some $18 billion that is justifiable since China is a sporting superpower, a position attained after decades of hard work. There is a lesson in it for India.