Child146;s play? If only

8216;8216;Real talent lies in schools. And that is the time and age to start any kind of sporting activity,8217;8217; says top athletics coach SS Rai.

Stretching the point further, sports psychologist Dr Sanjeev P Sahni says, 8216;8216;If a child starts young, she is more prone to imbibe what is taught to them. It is also a fact that sports at a formative stage helps one develop into a better human being. Every youngster should get a two years or so of recreational sport before getting a taste of competition. But we hardly give any importance to these things. Parents and coaches only want champions8230; winners. That doesn8217;t happen so easily.8217;8217;

Sahni8217;s point is borne out by the fact that, while school-level competitions exist freely, the more mundane task of scouting and training is given the go-by. So what8217;s the way out? How does a country with no grassroots level sports and no scientific planning do well in the international arena?

Well, we picked five sports bodies to find out: the All India Football Federation AIFF, the Amateur Athletics Federation of India AAFI, the Indian Hockey Federation IHF, the Basketball Federation of India BFI, the Swimming Federation of India SFI. All youth-friendly sports, all with potential to breed champions one, in fact, has. But not one of them has a programme to promote sports at school levels.

The AAFI and AIFF do have plans which they say will be launched 8216;soon8217;. The BFI and the SFI believe it8217;s the duty of the Sports Authority of India SAI to look at the issue. And the IHF, which produced a junior world cup-winning team two years ago, doesn8217;t believe in school-level sports at all.

Says IHF president KPS Gill, 8216;8216;I don8217;t believe sports should be promoted at school, because it will only lead to students bunking classes more. Hockey is doing fine, and we hope to continue the same way. The rest is the job of the School Games Federation of India SGFI.8217;8217;

Over to the SGFI then. Their profile only entitles them to conduct school competitions, provide scholarships to medal-winners and, occasionally, send school teams for international meets abroad. They also have the right to recommend specific youngsters to the SAI. Nothing much in effect, and certainly not enough to make a difference.

There has been, say experts, a sudden fall among participants taking up games like athletics, swimming, basketball, hockey or any kind of power games. 8216;8216;We hardly find any kids today with the right age and also the right structure coming forward to practice athletics or any kind of power sports. Students from government schools are lost due to lack of proper talent search programme while public schools kids generally opt for cricket8217;8217;, adds Rai.

The importance of sports training at schools is borne out by contrasting lessons in two countries: Cricket in the UK and swimming in Germany.

Cricket is a dying art in the land of its birth primarily because it is no longer part of the syllabus at schools; the flip-side to this is that it has been overtaken by other sports. Football has the money and the glamour, basketball draws the crowds in the inner cities. Cricket is left to the Asian population, which is why the county circuit is densely populated with Patels, Shahs, Khans and their cousins.

In Germany, the national sports federation DSB has 19 regional federations and some associated sports groups, much less than the 29 state Olympic associations and 31 federations registered under the Indian Olympic Association IOA. While the Indian federations depend on salaried employees as coaches and assistant coaches, the DSB has at its disposal more than two million volunteer coaches and officials.

Swimming-related facilities are everywhere; indeed, it8217;s difficult to find a school or community centre that doesn8217;t have a public schwimmbad or swimming pool. There could also be a hallenbad, or indoor pool, complementing the outdoor pool, for round-the-year use. Pools are sometimes also part of a public or private health spa.

Now you know where Michael Gross comes from.

Think the US and soccer 8212; they are the women8217;s world champions 8212; or Japan and the J-League football or China and almost every discipline. Or the former Soviet states and their assembly-line production system.

However, there are signs of change. The SAI has taken the initiative to adopt 100 Navodaya Vidyalayas across the country, where they will provide schools with training facilities, coaches and all the other paraphernalia to help children concentrate on one discipline and excel in it. The progress of the children will be monitored for a period of three years after which they will be sent to regional training centres for further training.

The scheme appears fine on the surface but dig a tad deeper and loopholes begin to surface. Loopholes that could, without mid-course intervention, reduce the project to the status of the National Sports Talent Search NSTS scheme. This sank without a trace after being launched in 1986 with a 8216;catch them young8217; motto.

8216;8216;It was rather unfortunate that the scheme didn8217;t succeed. But we have learnt from our mistakes and hope that this scheme will give us better results,8217;8217; says SAI8217;s director of operations CR Gopinath. 8216;8216;The flaw in the earlier scheme was that participants had to stay away from home for a long time. Since they were too young some felt homesick as a result and started neglecting not only their game but also their studies which became a cause of concern for the parents too.8217;8217;

8216;8216;But since the currently launched scheme is day boarding, every participant will be entitled to stay at home with their parents and hope will be mature enough once they graduate to the regional centres.8217;8217;

The All India Tennis Association and the Delhi Public Schools Society have collaborated to try and take tennis to all students of DPS across the country. The AITA actually provides all playing equipment while the schools will provide the basic infrastructure required.

Two years ago, the Delhi Development Authority launched an Athletics Promotion Scheme under which nine girls and two boys below 18 years are selected in trials held every six months.

Olympian J S Randhawa, the pioneer of the initiative, says, 8216;8216;We set a qualifying mark for the participants and the ones who qualify are enrolled into the scheme but again there are times when none make the grade.8217;8217;

The qualifiers are entitled to a scholarship of Rs 1000 per month apart from the practice kits and traveling expenses when going for competitions within the country.

But these are one-shot attempts, not enough to change the way sport is looked at or to influence any outcome. Societal attitudes need to change too, says former national 100m record holder Amit Khanna 8212; who blames the media for the mess.

8216;8216;The media doesn8217;t portray games like hockey, football and athletics the way they should be portrayed and they way they cover cricket. No one knows the national 100m champion today but everybody knows a cricketer because of the exposure they get. More exposure brings in more money, more motivation towards the game. But that8217;s not happening in any other game.8217;8217;