Passionate fans and the mirage of medals galore
By Atul Rawat
“Get ready, kids. It’s an all-important match today,” I announced excitedly.
“Yes, Dad,” both my children replied enthusiastically.
“India will win Gold in this event dear,” my wife chimed in.
Soon enough, the snacks and soft drinks were ready and the television volume was turned up. The entire family had settled down to cheer for the Indian team. The advertisements on the broadcast channel too raised the temperature a few degrees.
“Jeetega Bharat!” This ubiquitous tagline was followed by our famous superstar exhorting us to cheer even louder. It did appear that we the viewers were somehow defending the honour of the nation.
“India will surely win,” my son announced confidently.
“Our team is too good,” declared my daughter. I looked at her with admiration, because it had taken her approximately three matches and three hundred social media feeds to acquire the confidence of a national selector. Her voice was soon drowned out by another advertisement celebrating Indian sporting prowess.
Soon the national anthem was played before the match and we all felt the goosebumps. The game began, and so did our cheering.
The commentators, too, seemed to acquire a sudden dose of nationalism, repeatedly reminding us that more than a billion Indians were watching.
For a few minutes, everything was perfect.
And then reality arrived.
The opposition appeared to be playing better than us and we were repeatedly at the receiving end. They were faster on the field, more disciplined and calmer under pressure.
During the match our team had been in an advantageous position several times but somehow managed to surrender it. A few elementary mistakes followed and a couple of opportunities were missed. Under pressure, the skill level dropped, while the opposition quietly went about its business.
Soon enough, it was over. We had lost and our excitement turned to disappointment, and disappointment soon descended into despondency.
Then began the inevitable post-mortem at the dining table. As we began eating the family dinner, “Arre yaar, why do we do this all the time?” my daughter complained. “There is politics,” pronounced the youngster. Within ten minutes, we had collectively diagnosed the entire Indian sporting system—from the comfort of our dining room.
The next morning, while going through the newspaper, I looked at the medals’ tally. It wasn’t quite what all those advertisements had led me to imagine.
“Are our expectations simply much higher than our sporting reality?” I wondered.
Perhaps they are.
The Medal Mirage at multi-sport events such as the Asian Games and, the Olympics continues. There also remains a considerable gap between Indian sporting emotion and Indian sporting preparation. If passion, television viewership, social-media enthusiasm and patriotic fervour were medal events, we would certainly win hands down.
There is no doubt that every medal that India wins deserves to be celebrated. It does not matter whether it was an individual event or a team event. Behind it lie years of training, sacrifice, discipline, financial uncertainty and extraordinary perseverance.
But that should not prevent us from asking an uncomfortable question:
Why does a nation of our size still struggle to produce champions across a broad spectrum of Olympic sports?
At the Asian Games level, India has made considerable progress. The Olympics, however, we are a different kettle of fish altogether. Our Olympic gold-medal history remains modest when compared with the extraordinary medal hauls accumulated by some of the world’s greatest individual Olympians over their careers. A look at Google told me that, since 1947, India has won just 7 gold medals. Five in Hockey and one each to Abhinav Bhindra in 2008 and one to Neeraj Chopra in 2020. In contrast Michael Phelps of USA has 13 individual golds of his won and a total of 23 Golds which include team events in swimming. And, he last competed in 2016 Rio Olympics. It is a sobering insight.
It tells us something about the ecosystem surrounding our athletes.
Indian sport is overwhelmingly dominated by cricket. To be fair to those who have built and managed cricket in India, they have created a remarkable sporting ecosystem. There is intense competition, enormous public interest, substantial financial support and increasingly sophisticated infrastructure. Most importantly, there is a pathway.
A talented child can progress through school, club, district, state and age-group cricket towards the professional game. We have numerous examples of cricketers from modest backgrounds reaching the very top, both professionally and financially.
The comparison with many other sports is less encouraging.
And there is another peculiarity of the medal table.
Cricket is a team sport. However magnificent the performance of eleven players, the team ultimately contributes one medal to the tally. The same applies to hockey and kabaddi —sports in which India has traditionally invested considerable emotion and resources.
Multi-sport competitions, however, are transformed by disciplines offering numerous medal opportunities.
Swimming. Athletics. Gymnastics. Diving. A world-class swimmer can compete in several individual events and relays. A gymnast may compete across multiple apparatus and team events. Athletics itself offers dozens of medal events both individual and team. That is where medal tables can change dramatically. One Champion, Many Medals.
Consider the contrast between two extraordinary young sporting talents.
A young cricketing phenomenon such as Vaibhav Suryavanshi may become one of India’s finest sportsmen. Yet at a multi-sport event, even a magnificent cricket team can ultimately win only one gold medal. Now consider China’s teenage swimming sensation Yu Zidi. At just 13 years of age, she has already demonstrated the ability to compete—and win—across multiple swimming events. At the Asian Games, she has won three individual gold medals in record-setting performances and has been named as the Most Valuable Women Athlete of Asian Games 2026. Similarly, Zhang Zhanshuo of Chian won 7 gold medals in swimming. One exceptional swimmer can therefore contribute several medals to a country’s tally at a single Games.
This is an argument for understanding medal economics. If India wants a significantly larger medal haul at multi-sport competitions, it must develop world-class depth in sports where multiple medal opportunities exist.
Our large and young population provides only the pool. A sporting system must find the talent at a young age, scientifically assessed, professionally coached and continuously nurtured. Young athletes need facilities, nutrition, sports science, competition exposure, financial support and, equally importantly, patient parents willing to allow their children to pursue uncertain sporting careers.
That requires an ecosystem. We know that exceptional individuals may occasionally emerge despite weak systems. However, great sporting nations attempt to ensure that champions emerge because of the system. And therein lies perhaps the most important question:
Do we have a sporting system capable of producing Olympic champions consistently, or are we still hoping that exceptional individuals will somehow emerge despite the system?
If India wants to end the mirage of medals, greater attention will have to go towards sports such as athletics, swimming and gymnastics, while continuing to strengthen areas where India has already demonstrated international potential—shooting, archery, wrestling, boxing, badminton, weightlifting and rowing, among others. In the Asian Games 2026 in Japan, there was a time when even a war torn nation like Iran had more Gold Medals than us.
There are several encouraging examples of private-sector involvement, including the Reliance Foundation, JSW, Adani Group, Tata Group and several others. But for a country as large as India, much more needs to be done. The rich harvest can come only after sustained effort over several decades. It will not be easy to catch up with nations that already dominate world sport. They have spent years building and refining their sporting ecosystems, and are now reaping the dividends of that investment.
But money and infrastructure alone will not solve the problem, because the governance of sport matters just as much as the athletes themselves. In the management of several sports bodies we find that they are headed by people whose principal qualification is not expertise in the sport itself. Many have never played the game at the international level or been involved in coaching, talent identification or high-performance training. Worse, some sporting federations have become battlegrounds for factions, elections and competing interests, with disputes occasionally spilling into the courts—including the country’s highest court.
That needs to change. Period.
The system that has been adopted by the counties that are at the top has evolved over decades. They painstakingly built the system over generations, and are now reaping the dividends. Perhaps, therefore, we need to moderate our habit of expecting medals before building the machinery that produces them.
The next time my family sits down to watch an Indian final, I know exactly what will happen.
The popcorn will come out, and the national anthem will play.
My son will predict gold, and my daughter will become an expert selector.
My wife will shout at the referee, and I will proudly announce: “Jeetega Bharat!”
But perhaps, before saying it, I will add one small qualification: “Provided Bharat also prepares.”
Because medals are not won on television, nor through jingoistic advertisements.
They are won years before the television cameras arrive.
And perhaps India’s greatest sporting victory will come when winning a medal is no longer treated as a miracle— but as the natural outcome of preparation.
PS – China won 169 Gold Medals compared to 21 won by India, in the recently concluded Asian Games in Japan.
(The author blogs at NotesfromDehradun@Atul Rawat)
