Swimming against tide
When Neeraj Chopra hurled the javelin to a distance of 87.58 metres almost two years ago in Tokyo, he immediately put his arms up in celebration. He instantly knew he had done something special. And after four more attempts, Neeraj rejoiced with the tri-colour as he became just the second Indian to win an individual gold at the Summer Olympics. More specially, he’d just become the first Indian track and field athlete to win an Olympic medal. The ripple effect of Chopra’s historical feat was felt in Bangkok last month at the Asian Athletics Championships where India, despite missing Chopra owing to an elbow strain, signed off with 27 medals (6 gold, 12 silver and 9 bronze) — it’s best-ever show at the continental bash outside of India.
Athletics, one of the two marquee disciplines in multiple discipline sporting extravaganzas like Olympics, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games, had always been a hard nut to crack for the Indians. While they have performed reasonably well at the continental level, especially in distance events and relays, they’ve generally been overpowered by the western powers at the Olympics. Whether it’s the easy access to better training and coaching facilities from a very young age or pure genetics, the western nations have predominantly called the shots on the track and field with the Africans bossing the distance-running events.
However, the arrival of Chopra has now inspired a whole bunch of athletes to push the boundaries that they hitherto felt was almost impossible. While India is still a million miles away from being even called an emerging track and field global force, performances from a string of athletes like Jyothi Yarraji, DP Manu, Murali Sreeshankar and Shaili Singh show there’s plenty of hope for the future.
Not just athletics, Indians have been breaking barriers in a host of other Olympic disciplines since the start of this millennium. Be it shooting, badminton, boxing, wrestling or weightlifting, all of them have athletes who are not just Olympic medallists but have stood tall in the world championships too. Each of them has taken its respective sport in the country to newer heights and acts as inspiration for kids to pursue it as a career. They have shown athletes from other disciplines too can become demigods like cricketers. Such has been the upsurge in the performances, Indians now genuinely believe they can consistently win multiple medals at Olympics. Amidst all this growth though, one discipline that has remained completely stagnated is swimming — the other marquee Olympic event.
Unlike other sports where athletes punch their ticket to the Olympics by earning their right, swimmers in the country normally have flown to the mother of all sporting events through university quota. Barring Sajan Prakash, who became the first Indian to make the A cut that guarantees an Olympic berth, and Srihari Natraj, who, too, hit the A mark at the very last minute to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics, others have even struggled to breach the B mark. If not for University quota, the Indian contingent may not have a swimmer on board at the Olympics.
Statistically speaking, Indian swimmers have won one gold, two silver and 6 bronze overall at the Asian Games — 13th amongst all disciplines — and just a lone bronze at the Commonwealth Games. Curiously, access to swimming isn’t as hard as shooting — one of the main contributors to India’s medal tally at various games — where the practitioners hail from certain regions and everything, from equipment to training to coaching is expensive and beyond the reach of most middle-class families. Swimming, on the other hand, sees huge participation and most pools in cities that run coaching programmes are generally packed.
So if the participation and interest is high amongst kids, what stops it from achieving higher standards? The answers are plenty but the major drawback for the sport is talented kids dropping out in their mid or late teens after realising the future is grim. So what many do is use their performances at sub-junior and junior nationals to gain scholarships in top colleges, either in India or abroad, and eventually settle for a good white-collar job.
“That’s has been the biggest problem for swimming and no-one knows how long it will continue,” former national coach Pradeep Kumar S, who has now moved to Aqua Nation Sports Academy in Dubai as head coach, told DHoS. “Most kids who take up swimming are from middle or upper middle-class families and they are generally academically sound. By the time they reach 14 or 15, they are sure of what they want. They realise swimming is not a financially viable career and parents too are not keen on spending when they know the returns are not guaranteed. So the top ones use swimming as a springboard for scholarships while the ones with some promise drop out. In the transition between junior to the senior, the drop-out rate is 60-70 percent. At the senior nationals, you only see a majority of the junior category swimmers competing. We put all our energy into training them, and poof, they are gone.”
Former multiple national champion Nisha Millet, whose records in various categories had stood for years, reckoned the lack of financial stability forces most to turn away from the pool following a promising start. “Unlike some of my contemporaries, I stuck to swimming and wanted to build a career. I dared to take that risk. But by the time I finished swimming, my parents had become nearly bankrupt. Then I had to rebuild it all and it was extremely tough. But some of my mates quit early, pursued education and ended up having a good life. And with very few of them returning to the sport in terms of coaching or administration, the sport has continued to suffer.”
Pradeep, who churned out hundreds of national champions during his 29-year association with the renowned Basavanagudi Aquatic Centre, felt unless corporate funding pours in and guarantees a stable future for talented kids, drop-outs will continue.
“For a sport to evolve, funding is vital. Talented kids should be scouted and given access to world-class infrastructure. They also must be given financial assurances until a certain age. Their training and all other costs need to be taken care of. But having said that, corporates will only come if the sport has an icon. Like a (PV) Sindhu for badminton, Mary Kom for boxing or Neeraj for athletics, swimming needs a hero who can change the tide. If that happens, I strongly believe aspiring kids will stick on, else the same will keep happening. They’ll either take scholarships or seek employment in Police, Railways or petroleum companies. Talents will just be lost.”
Millet feels the whole system needs a shake-up if India wishes to excel in swimming. “Swimming and athletics are two medal-rich disciplines and literally every country in the world competes in it. The competition is extremely high. It’s not like other sports where a limited number of nations compete. For a long time, administrators ran the sport without much vision. They were just happy conducting nationals. This needs to change and federation officials have to engage with corporates and get more funding for the sport because without money, nothing can be done. Right now swimming is thriving primarily due to private academies and not all can keep affording it after a point of time.
“Secondly, the infrastructure needs to improve. Very importantly, the standard of coaching also needs to improve at the grassroots level. I’ve seen on numerous occasions where a basketball or volleyball coach doubles up as a swimming coach in some centres. Some of them even don’t know how to float. Barring top centres, coaching level is shockingly poor in many places. So the onus should also be on improving the level of coaches because only good coaches can produce good athletes.
“Like in other sports, top swimmers have to be sent abroad for specialised training. The challenge is humungous but if other sports have excelled, I don’t see why swimming can’t. We have two genuinely talented boys in Srihari and Sajan and a couple more in Aryan Nehra and Kushagra Rawat. But the big question is, who is going to do it.”
Only time will tell that!