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Journalism of Courage
The irony may have been unintentional but it was inescapable: as the Indian team marched out to the opening ceremony of the Asian Games at Busan on Sunday, the athletes had been put firmly in their place. As this paper reported, the first row of the contingent comprised not the medal prospects of the next fortnight or those successful at the recent Commonwealth Games but a trio of anonymous babus, one of whom insouciantly blew kisses to the crowd. And, as former athlete Sriram Singh pithily commented, that8217;s pretty much the way it has always been. Which is the tragedy of Indian sport: that officials 8212; politicians and bureaucrats 8212; see it as little more than a short-cut to the limelight. Once there, they proceed to make a nuisance of themselves, bungling up the work they are supposed to do by focusing instead on main chance.
Stories of official foul-ups at these tournaments are as common as our hockey team choking at the death: how one boxer was denied entry to the Commonwealth Games because his papers were not in order; how the women8217;s hockey team had to stay outside the Games village, away from other athletes and their competitors. Their control over our sportsmen verges on a stranglehold, a clear case of ambition outstripping talent. And there are enough stories of 8216;gullible8217; athletes being duped into dope which, whether true or not, do undermine the credibility of our oxymoronic sports administrators. As does the comment of one official on Monday when asked why star weightlifters Kunjarani Devi and Sanamacha Chanu had flopped miserably: it8217;s because we had to send 8216;clean8217; athletes to the Games.
