A gold medal in hockey in the Asian Games is always a great moment to cherish, rare that it has been since the sport was introduced in the Games in 1958. India’s triumph in the 17th edition of the Games in Incheon, Korea, only its third, at the expense of eight-time champion Pakistan, should once again revive interest in the national game that had plunged to an all-time low at the London Olympic Games only two years ago. The victory in the final in the tiebreaker against its neighbour helped India cap a successful second-week campaign after it had stuttered embarrassingly even behind a few island- nations at the beginning. The coaching staff in hockey, who might have faced the axe had there been a failure, should be retained now as India prepares for the Rio Olympics, for which it has automatically qualified as the Asian Games champion. Hockey apart, there were gold medals for India in athletics, kabaddi, tennis, archery, shooting, squash, boxing and wrestling. But the eventual medals tally of 57 including 11 gold, fell short of expectations. The eighth place on the medals table, compared to the sixth four years ago, has put India almost back where it was in Doha in 2006 when the country had 53 medals including 10 gold. There were of course quite a few memorable moments for India, besides hockey, not least of all the iconic Manipuri boxer M.C. Mary Kom’s maiden title in the Games, and the runaway victory for the women’s relay team.
China expectedly topped the medals tally with 342 including 151 gold, no matter that its domination was slightly eroded. That India came behind countries such as North Korea and Thailand should once again bring the focus onto our near-stagnating sports standards. With meagre resources, inadequate infrastructure, limited foreign exposure and a constant tussle between the national sports federations and the government, Olympic sport in the country has continued to struggle. The Sports Authority of India did well to prevent the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) from fielding a jumbo-sized contingent including 662 athletes, but even in the pruned list of 516 competitors there were dozens of ‘also-rans’, who predictably failed. If it could be any consolation, the rest of South Asia put together managed only a dozen medals including two gold medals in cricket, a sport where the BCCI stubbornly refused to field a team. Prioritisation of sports disciplines should be the key area for the government to focus on, instead of spreading its resources thin. It should spell out its policy and selection criteria to the IOA at least a year ahead of such games so as to avoid the kind of controversy that forced some of the athletes to approach the courts to gain clearance for their Korean sojourn.