Back from Isolation - Indian Olympic Story

It was in 2012 when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to take that drastic step - a decision which was necessary from administration point of view specifically at the conduct of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) post Commonwealth Games 2010.

There were huge cries, issues of false pride and other theatrics from Indian officials. The news of Indian Olympic Association being banned dominated the sports news segment for a day, or a two or if persisted a week and nothing more apart from the periodic cameos. It was usual business from then on. The corruption charges of the CWG 2010 went back to being a political matter than a sporting matter.

If CWG 2010 and various accusations are one hand; it is the manner in which the postmortem was conducted that irked many followers of Indian Olympics. Clearly, this was an administrative issue(s) and the so-called 'God fathers' of Indian Olympic movement ignored the media scrutiny and the threat from the IOC. They took that one extra step and elected candidates who were either charge sheeted or being prosecuted by Indian judiciary or on bail. Which era are they living in?

I believe the ban was justified. It tempered down the egos and the softened the temerarious officials - the tainted ones who put in their names without shame or consideration. Something had to happen and IOC made a bold move and banned the entire association till the time the internal crisis were resolved. A cut-off from the Olympic tree.

It took some time for the news to sink in, analyse, react and then formulate a game plan to get back into the Olympic fold. There were several mails exchanged and the pressure was less considering 2013 was a non-Olympic year. When the decision was finally taken, it was little late. The IOA as a organisation missed the Olympic train. 

Indian contingent classified as Independent Athletes marched into the Opening Ceremony under Olympic flag. These three athletes - a five time Olympian Shiv Keshavan, Himanshu Thakur and Nadeem Iqbal were the only ones to be 'independent' and without a national flag at the Sochi Winter Olympics. 

Indian Athletes under Olympic Flag at Sochi 2014 - Getty Images

One can script a drama surrounding these episodes and echoing various sentiments of many people involved in this. A new scene was shot two days ago when the new IOA officials were elected, ably observed by an IOC delegation headed by IOC member Robin Mitchell.

Narayna Ramachandran, President of the World Squash Federation and the brother of BCCI supremo N. Srinivasan, was elected as the new President; Rajeev Mehta and Anil Khanna chosen as the new Secretary General and Treasurer respectively.

"The IOC observers told the EB members of the IOC about the IOA elections being held in full respect of the recently passed NOC constitution, and this new constitution complies with all IOC requirements, including the main clause that no person convicted or charge-framed can run for a position within the organisation."

History was made at Sochi today - for the first time in Olympic chronicles that a suspension of an NOC has been lifted during the Olympic Games and with immediate effect.

What does this mean? The three independent athletes at the Sochi Games can now compete under Indian flag, can walk behind their national flag at the Closing ceremony and as a symbolic way of depicting the recognition of three Indian athletes - Indian flag will be raised at the Games village.

IOC officials have authored a perfect ending to this year old saga which will bring cheers to millions of sports fans in India and more so for the three athletes who are relieved to have seen this positive development.

Redemption is one thing, it is the next set of steps that are crucial. How different will the current set of administrators be from the previous incumbents?

Coming back from isolation is a small victory for Indian Olympic movement and there are many miles to cover before we can actually rejoice. For now, we are back and I only wish - it is to move forward.

ALONE WITH THE SKIS - AN INDIAN AND HIS TALE AT THE WINTER OLYMPICS

Jerry Bujakowski in action

At the 1964 Winter Olympics edition held at Innsbruck, Austria, India had a representation. It was the first time an athlete from India was participating in such a event - Jeremy Bujakowski, known by his nickname 'Jerry'. He was born to a Polish father in Lithuania before acquiring citizenship of India, courtesy of his father's involvement in building of oil refineries in India and subsequently becoming its naturalised citizen.

  

Jerry was sent to United States for higher education after his preliminary education at St. Joseph's North Point, Darjeeling and St.Xavier's College, Kolkata. Language barriers coupled with occasional cultural jolts - did not deter his love for skiing. He started out skiing in Boise, Idaho and very soon he was offered a full scholarship at the University of Denver.

Apart from mere representation at the 1964 Olympics, he had his share of his injuries which threatened to shorten his career in skiing. At the Olympics downhill event he suffered a broken back and concussions.  Damaged internal haemorrhages along with badly fractured leg ended his maiden Olympics. It was an uphill battle to complete recovery.

At an interval of every six months since that dreadful accident, Jerry went through four operations in that period - each time surgeons re-tied the nerves in order to prevent bleeding. He was eager in spite of this set back and resumed training at the Mammoth Mountains with one ski and his left leg under a cast! All these efforts - in order to regain fitness and participate in the next edition at Grenoble, France.

By the time he became fit enough to compete (though not completely healed) he had met Janet Evans; popped the question and was married to her. At this juncture, Jerry also had the opportunity to meet Dave McCoy, former coach of the US ski team and also the owner of a resort at the Mammoth Mountains. Dave took a keen interest in Jerry which resulted in him being the mentor/coach at the Grenoble Olympics.

On the day of parade of nations,  Janet accompanied her husband Jerry - who held the Indian flag proudly. He was the 'sole' representative of India once again at the Olympics in the capacity of an 'athlete'.

Apart from being the athlete, he was also India's 'Chef de Mission' ( head of the delegation) and aptly appointed his American wife Janet Evans as 'Chef d'Equipe' - to coordinate in matters related to technical aspects of the sport. I am not sure what her credentials were apart from the fact that her father, a real estate broker comes from a skiing family and her first meeting of Jerry happened on the mountains.

In total, Jerry participated in three of the skiing events - Downhill, Giant Slalom and Slalom. He finished with a rank of 53 at the downhill event, 65 at the giant slalom event and did not advance further at the slalom event.

I am not sure how many in India remembered when he went into race that day in Grenoble. A family from San Diego woke up early that morning (4 am) in order to catch his friend Jerry on his downhill run. ABC cut to commercial at the time of Jerry's run. A furious lady, mother of Jerry's friends called up the local ABC station; endlessly she tried to catch hold of the responsible person who made the call to show commercials. She did manage to get hold of somebody at New York city and by the time she returned to her children to the living room, the sportscasters on the mountainside of Grenoble were making an announcement about them replaying the run of the 'Indian' skier, Jerry Bujakowski for his fans in San Diego, California!

India had to wait a good twenty years before there were to be any athletes at the Winter Olympics. Since 1988 with the exception of 1994 Lillehammer Games, there has been consistency even though the numbers never swelled beyond four for a single edition.

Sochi Olympics 2014 would have been an occasion to celebrate for the Indian contingent. The event would have coincided perfectly with the fifty years celebration of an Indian athlete participating at the Winter Olympics. There is one problem though - no visibility of India flag during the event.

The four athletes who have qualified for the event from India has a four-time Winter Olympic participant by the name of Shiv Keshvan, who incidentally will be participating for a fifth time at the event.

The decision to hold the IOA general elections on February 9^th and not before the start of the event (7th Feb is the deadline set by IOC) is appalling to say the least. No doubt, the four athletes will participate but with the generic flag - under the Olympic flag.

It would have been interesting how Jerry would have reacted (he passed away in 2010) for the current state of mess Indian Olympic Association is in and for the incumbent officials failing to look at the bigger picture of the athletes.

Nevertheless, I will celebrate the occasion and writing this article is one such way to acknowledge the man, Jerry Bujakowski and the painstaking efforts he took to make India become a Winter Olympic nation.

Evolution with bursts of Revolution - An Indian Sports Story

Revolution and Evolution is a rhyming pair and a complementing couple too. For anything to materialise in life, I believe they must co-exist. A human life follows the pattern of evolution, however without the frequent spurts of revolution now and then, the process of humanisation would have been predictable, certain, very slow and a touch boring.

These ‘bursts of revolution’ change the course of evolution and to a large extent accelerate the process. Failure to adapt to the new conditions can be a master stroke and thereby retaining one’s individuality or be a lack of vision in not staying with the times. I am all ok with the fact of retaining one’s tradition, values, culture which makes globalisation interesting; in fact very intriguing. At the same time, closing the door(s) of improvement in the name of tradition is baffling.

Take India for example and I am amassed at the growth it has had in the past two decades. It is not a stranger anymore on the world map and there are many reasons to it which have been well covered by a lot of writers, opinion makers, creative artists and a lot others around the globe. Not all endorse and understand (a bit) my country in a way I see it, that’s fair enough. I too do not have the same words to feed into their ears. What exists, in spite of these sociological differences is that, there is a mutual admiration society.

And to go further, I take the example of sports - While growing up; I did not know what it meant to be ‘Behind the Scene’ of a sporting event. The events were shown live on television or transmitted via radio commentary or presented graphically and written poetically on the print media. Olympic Sports and its values was zilch to me as there was no uniformity of sports education growing up. I knew about sports because my parents played right until their youth before they were married and continued supplementing with information. What I knew was that, only a fanatic or a close relative/friend of a sports person was involved in the sports industry. Like many of my age that time, I too and previous generations to us played sports with basic rules applying the human ethics and general physical awareness. Sports were just another activity which did not involve studies. So, we all liked it, didn’t we? That was a long time ago or is it?

Now, we are fighting for the Sports Bill, a huge document which is making rounds from a long time in India. It is the Government of India’s initiative with a purpose to streamline the Indian Olympic Association. Its implementation so far has been limited or to say less penetrative. While the Government is spending a lot of money on Olympic Sports, the National Olympic Committee of India is many miles away from Nirvana. I believe unless Sports is of national priority and a long term government policy, it is very difficult to implement a set of rules and regulations. Indian Olympic Association (IOA) in my view was established so that it can lobby on behalf of Indian Olympic movement and create a platform where more athletes could concentrate on their activities than dwell on petty politics; instead; let them spread the value of Sports and act as the voice of the ideals that were drawn up by few good men of the yore who drafted the Olympic Charter.

I believe IOA has failed on this aspect and looked for excuses for their repeated failures and still continue to do so. It took Commonwealth Games to bring the ghosts of IOA from the closet. What if India never hosted CWG in 2010? Few businesses would have made less money or more money depending on which side of the spectrum they are; Indian government would have spent the same money elsewhere and the IOA would have continued to be a member of IOC. A lot of the working stuff who did their bit in the Organising Committee and volunteers would have worked in different industries and there would have been less support to the few activists who appeared to have rebelled for a long time with a cause but achieved little to no results.

India is a land of people living under innumerable cultures and of different beliefs. There is a struggle for basic amenities, presence of turbulent neighbours’ since Independence and these are some of the factors that put sports in the lesser priority category. Is housing more important or a play ground? Basic infrastructure or Sporting Infrastructure? Food or dietary supplements? Clothing for Protection or for performance? Education to create a better self or to excel in Sports?

In an ideal world, these problems must never be an alibi for sports organisations that are entrusted to look after this and create a systematic sports culture. Sports for a lot were and are a means to escape studies. It was outlawed as it interfered with many of the growing kid’s education and the practice is still on. Parents, Schools and families seldom give importance to sports. It remains an extra-curricular exercise and not co-curricular subject. It is a candy and not nutrition. Back then, very few Robin Hoods existed in our society and now we have a slow raise in fan following. Again, when we talk of numbers it is easy to justify but when we consider the percentage, the graphics would do the talking.

With all these and many other factors, sports continue to shine with its gloss increasing with time. Field Hockey and then Cricket, probably the only two team sports that were consistently part of and competed at the International level. Individuals came and left, but the effect did not trickle down to others in case of individual sports baring Tennis and to an extent Badminton. Shooting, Boxing, Football and Wrestling has potential. Hockey, after having won eight gold medals by the time LA Games (1984) were about to begin, faded and devolved with time. Failure to adapt and an organisation led by the thoughts that, hockey was in success auto-pilot mode failed to have contingencies in place. To put it bluntly, it crashed. Thirty – three years hence, we are still in the process of restoration and even the small intervals of revolutions failed to take off once it was on the run way. The answer to this delay will be a thesis subject, and of my interest the day I shall take up my doctoral studies. Hockey is not in a transition state at the core, it is merely lacking direction, guidance and management to take it forward. Where is our Messiah hiding?

I would not like to talk much about cricket as it has outgrown everyone’s expectations in the world. I believe India has one of the best infrastructures in the world to play cricket at the moment and the people who are running the game will just have to sort their power struggles. For now, the sport is safe and unless a meteor strikes heavily, the influence and popularity will not fade that easily.

I had to wait 12 years of my life to see an Indian athlete wearing an Olympic medal; Leander Paes at the 1996 Atlanta Games. Individual sports are a luxury and till today, it requires a special effort to go through the hurdles of representing the country. How many athletes would be happy to just participate and not bother under what flag? That is a debatable point, as it is not a ban on competing. It however has repercussions, as the funding from the International Olympic Committee and the International Federations get curtailed and Indian Government can only spare a few hundred millions of rupees for sports. Very few private enterprises with deep pockets are into individual sports. For the size of India, it is not enough. We can be content with whatever we are given, but cannot expect to be world challengers or beaters if this continues.

If Sports Ministry gets involved in running the affairs of Indian Olympic Association, the ban will continue unless the interference is aligned with the Olympic Charter. IOC requires non-governmental intervention while running the National Olympic Committee. Bulk of the money is provided by the Sports Ministry to the athletes and their welfare which comes as minimum requirements and for some in the form of Government jobs. So naturally, the political honchos expect IOA to behave while IOA use the governmental interference clause to live on the edge of being banned. That tight rope was cut last December and the struggle is on to be reinstated back to the Olympic family. The ban on IOA remains and was not changed at the recently concluded IOC General Body meeting.

The only solution for IOA is to mend their ways and for certain egotist individuals to come out of their incumbency. An instance like this is when the democracy of India fails to remove the cynicism of a sports enthusiast. There is hatred, there is anger, a lot of malice, dirty politics, power struggles, incapable of letting it go and other adjectives that matches the aforementioned frequency. The efforts of certain athletes and sports rights activists are of limited use. Are they fighting in what appears a lost battle already? Or are they doing their little bit and need more of the same from others?

Yes and No - the very fact that Indian Sports is under constant discussion makes it interesting for the future; how long are we prepared to fight to make IOA a proper governed body? Do we have the courage, patience and optimism to see it happening? I believe so and this I rely on evolution and the current on-going battle (from the year 2010) to force IOA to mend its way is the revolution that is complementing the evolutionary process of Indian Sports.

For now I let go of my little frustration. I see and hear a lot of kids in India playing different sports, have more playing facilities and resources than I did. They are well informed too on international sports. Things can be much, much better than what it is. Let me be a pragmatist and step back a little and see what’s happening. I see there has been an improvement at the grassroots level, which keeps me in a good mental health and optimistic about Indian Sports and for its future. 

LONDON OLYMPICS 2012: AN INDIAN HOPE

On 27^th July 20:00 Greenwich time – the biggest multi-sport spectacle shall begin not just across London, but possibly in every country in the world. I am sure most of the earth’s human population would be glued to televisions, or on the internet to watch the Opening Ceremony.

2012 is London’s time to host the quadrennial event and preparations were on since the time they won the bid way back in 2005. It seems a long time ago, I was still an engineering student then and now all those years of work put by the London Organising Committee will be witnessed by a lot of people. They get their praise, will have share of criticisms but that’s modern life – you can never be in the limelight without accompanied by share of praises and controversies.

Well, controversies shall be aimed at the Organising Committee – be it over budget, security mess and few humanitarian and labour issues. I was in London back in 2009; I drove on the way where most of the work for Olympics was being done. It is a great feeling to be an Olympic city, isn’t it? Not many outside the sporting fraternity agreed to this. “London isn’t a developing economy so they don’t need Olympic Games to showcase the city or the country in general to the world” – echoed few concerned voices. Let’s get world economics into perspective - there was absolutely no mention of ‘recession’ when the Games were awarded to London. In fact, this could have been any city across Europe and America who were bidding for the Games. With Beijing having already hosted the Games, we can eliminate Asia as one of the candidate cities.

Amidst many issues and triumphs, here we are hours before the start of the 30^th edition of Modern Olympics. This is the time to look at the success stories of individuals and teams who have been preparing for the Games for that one moment of glory. During the Olympics – it isn’t about the Organising Committee; the talk of the town will be the athletes, so it should be. The mere mention of athletes will be termed ‘success’ – as Olympics is about them and rest of them just play a supporting role.

Being an Indian, I am pumped up for these games than ever before. Main reason being, this is the best chance we have to improve our record and evolve as a sporting nation.  

For a moment, let’s forget there are better countries in the world who have been consistently winning from years. No other country measure to the size and ambiguity as India do. Sports, let’s face it isn’t a top priority in our country. There are larger issues at stake, but doesn’t mean sports must be ignored. Every sector has a department and because of the failure of other sectors, it doesn’t mean we have to not give importance to Sports. I have heard people saying – Sports doesn’t fill a poor man. The issue isn’t with Sports; it is the other departments that are supposed to be looking into that. Honestly, it is sad that Sports have been overlooked for so many reasons in the name of reasons given aplenty.

Even while sanctions have been made from the Government, there weren’t and aren’t enough skilled and visionary people working for the federations to make the best use of facilities given. You don’t need to have the best facilities, but we have been poor in optimising the resources. Be it the way money spent sporadically in the name of Sports or lack of enthusiasm, and looking Sports as one of the ways to get to power. This isn’t abnormal by any standards – The whole world operates this way and sporting world isn’t different, but not at the cost of overlooking the basics. Developed countries (Sports or Politics) play power games at a higher level where as it starts from the low level here – Reality check.

So next time, before we compare India to any other sporting nation – let us take a moment to reflect if that actually makes sense. Mere comparing to other countries exposes our shortcomings in the lack of understanding as to how our country operates.

India, the sporting country passed the baton from hockey to cricket after the success of Indian cricket (World Cup 1983) which coincided with downfall of hockey. From 1984, it has been a downward slide for Indian hockey at the Olympics. History speaks about us being the 8-time Olympic champions – Well the last time was a good 32 years ago. Now history is anything but forgotten – as we live in those moments and try to pacify ourselves than trying to correct the present mess, hockey is in.

Post independence, there has been only handful of people to have won medals for India. Barring Hockey, we have had seven athletes who have won the medals for India. K.D. Jadhav won the bronze medal for Wrestling at Helsinki (1952 Games) and it took a 44 years and a gap of 10 Olympics before we had another individual winning the medal. Leander Paes did it and all the countrymen were over the moon. I was 12 years then and it was my second Olympics after having watched the 1992 Barcelona Games for the first time on TV telecast. It took me time to understand the meaning of it, but I was thrilled because he won. Putting some historic perspective - Sports was either winning or losing back then, and not much emphasis was given to the process of either. Personally it is different now – and I don’t have that innocence anymore. Leander Paes winning was also the first Indian medal since the Hockey Gold at the Moscow Olympics. In a way, the bronze tennis medal was a turning point and made Olympics as a focal point in Indian sports.

Karnam Malleshwari became the first woman to win an Olympic medal for India (weightlifting 69 kg category) at Sydney and so there were some celebrations in few sections of our society. It also coincided with a transition phase in India where you had a lot of women taking up jobs. Malleshwari’s medal gave a boost to the future of Indian women sports. In the last decade we have seen some good improved performances by Indian women athletes, but none went on to win the Olympic medal. But we are getting there.

Though we had tasted Gold medals, it was only at the team sport level. Silver medals individually were previously won by Norman Pritchard (1900 Games - two silver medals, a Brit representing British India), none came post independence. It was the double-trap shooter Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, who went a step ahead and took the silver medal. Indian sports seemed to have evolved, slowly and steadily. Three Olympics, three individual medals – it was high time wasn’t it, especially when looked from an Indian context?

India is compared to China in terms of economy and population. But the ideologies remain different and more often the foundation plays an important role in sustaining and giving any projects some effectiveness. To demonstrate as the next super power, China took the opportunity as hosts to showcase that they are to be seen as world leaders in sports as well. The greatest example one can give is demonstration.

China did just that, as they ended up winning 51 Gold Medals at the 2008 Games whereas India celebrated similarly for winning the first individual gold. I can safely say, more money was spent in India for that one gold medal than what China would have spent celebrating 51 Gold medals. That’s difference in culture isn’t it? Irrespective of our situations, I was happy to note that, progress was happening and 2008 Games ended up being the most successful games for India – winning three medals (one Gold medal and two bronze medals).

Abhinav Bindra became the toast of the country whereas Sushil Kumar and Vijender Singh weren’t left too behind.  I was delighted to see more than one medal in the medals tally. That was a first for me and those eyes still retained that innocence in 2008. In a way 2008 was the year when I took a serious decision to study Sports and make that as a career option. And here I am four years later, working in the sports industry having different perspectives about Sports than what I had and for the first time hoping, expecting medals from India. Losing my innocence? Or is this a process of discovering Indian Sports?

Yes, earlier I watched the games with an open mind. Not anymore - as much as I am open to how things pan out; I am never shy to offer my opinion. It isn’t just being patriotic and being blindly supportive, but it is now looking from a broader perspective. While I am not expecting miracles (that’s better left when not expecting), I am looking at some serious performances in the coming two weeks at London. Shooting, Boxing, Wrestling, Badminton, Archery and Tennis are the sports I and the entire nation will be looking at. As an Indian, I am expecting 5 medals from this edition. After having seen a lot of work going through in the last four years, five medals is not an unfair expectation. Five or more medals would do for me keeping the reality of our sporting situation in the country.

On an end note I just wanted to highlight - Sporting triumphs doesn’t fill our stomachs, but ask any fan or a follower/watcher of Sports – It provides a moment of joy to celebrate success as if it was our own. That is the power of Sports and in Olympics the joy gets bigger as it will be done on a world stage. It isn’t just about the medals overall but it is the way you play and as an addition, for going the distance he/she will be remembered for that particular moment,  the moment where words fail to explain the feeling. Joy, tears, pain, agony and disappointment becomes the five symbolic human expressions through we understand the reason why Olympics exist.

Like I said, I am looking at the Olympics only from a sporting perspective as the other issues should remain backstage for the next two weeks and when Paralympics begin at the conclusion of Olympics. There is a time for every discussion and the time currently is just about the Olympics –  It is about  10,500 athletes coming from 204 countries (few playing under Olympic Flag), taking part in 26 Sports over 302 events. For a first in the history of Olympics - female athletes from all those 204 countries will be participating. Now isn’t this world coming to one place?