Democracy at work in sport’s crowning moment

Hopefully, there will be a divine force sorting them out; hopefully there will be no heart attacks a few years after world records! Our champions must age with grace and honour, not turn into wrecked bodies as the drugs that propelled them extract their pound of flesh.

It is time as well to bury, once more, the original amateur spirit of the Games. The Olympics are as much a flood of brands and multinational corporations as they are of stunning sportsmen. It is not how it was meant to be but that is the reality of our times. There can no longer be a Roger Bannister who does the rounds of his patients in the morning and sets a world record in the afternoon. As McDonalds and Coke plaster their brand names, as Samsung pay for the training of athletes, somebody must mention Jim Thorpe who lost his medal on a flimsy payment; a Jesse Owens who was hounded and never allowed to compete in the Games again.

There will be others who come merely to participate; to soak in the atmosphere, to make up the numbers, to provide poignant stories of struggle. This is their day on the big stage, where they can walk into the Olympic stadium no different from the great champions that come from privileged lands. They will walk behind their flags and to the sound of their national anthem and nobody will tell them they aren’t good enough. It is the only time the sporting world will let that happen. Without them the Olympics are hollow.

There will be others walking into the stadium; people ignorant of the spirit of sport, even uncaring; spending money that would have helped an athlete jump an extra inch or cut half a second of his timing. You will see them immediately for they will strut around imagining, as silly men do, that the self is greater than the moment. These are the people who ensure that their countries have no chance of winning a medal. Must they exist or does their presence allow the stars to shine brighter? Underneath the Indian flag, and to the melody of the national anthem, you will find them too.

Ignore them. Search instead for Anju George and Anjali Bhagwat, two women who will have to fight the opposition and their own system if they have to stand on the podium that eyes, shut and open, have dreamt of. Search for Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi who will put aside differences in trying to produce the medal that they and India deserve. Search for Dhanraj Pillay, a mighty talent made to shuttle between mere wisps of people. He will, like Gagan Ajit and Tirkey and the others, play his heart out for India aware that others in his contingent were trying to get secretaries and petty officials to wear the same blazer!

And for heavens sake, don’t ask why a land of a billion people cannot produce more medals. You can ask stupid questions all your life and yet you will be wise if you do not ask this one. We are a country where children are still being taken off from schools to work the paddy fields and roll tobacco into bidis; where children are driven away from sport towards that one extra mark that might make the difference between a good education and a poor one; where politicians are assigning land meant for playgrounds to builders.

We are not a country of a billion people when it comes to the Olympics, not one percent of that. When it comes to sport, we are a cruel, heartless, uncaring country and those that ask the question in Parliament need only look around for an answer.

If we win a medal, it is a miracle because we choose it to be that way; because athletes are meant to compete with athletes, not with their own system.

There is much joy in the Olympics, there is much heartbreak too. That is the way of the world, that is why the cheetah kills the deer.