Journalism of Courage
Four years ago, Saina Nehwal won India’s final gold medal of the Commonwealth Games in a nail-biting match that lasted close to an hour. Not only did it allow India to cross the century-mark in the medals tally, but it also helped the hosts pip England for the second spot on the table to record their best-ever finish.
As the Glasgow Games drew to a close on Sunday, it was perhaps purely coincidental that the last gold medal India won was once again won in badminton, this time by Parupalli Kashyap. Though his achievement is as significant, it did not have the same impact on India’s position on the medals table as Saina’s did.
Kashyap’s was India’s 15th gold and 64th medal overall, a tally which saw India finish fifth. Four years ago as hosts of the Delhi Games, India’s tally was 101 in all, 38 of them gold. While performances were disappointing in some disciplines, especially athletics and boxing, the sharp dip in the medals tally is not a reflection of a collective dip in the performance of the country’s athletes or simply because of the lack of home advantage this time around.
Apart from sending a significantly smaller contingent (215 compared to 495 in Delhi), several sports in which India won medals at Delhi were scrapped for the Glasgow Games, while the medal events in some with drastically reduced.
A host country has to include a minimum of 10 core sports identified by the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) but can cull from an additional list of seven which include archery, a few events in shooting, tennis and wrestling. The medal events from shooting were reduced from 44 in Delhi to 19 after the team events were removed from Glasgow Games. India won 13 medals less at Glasgow compared to the 30 won in Delhi in shooting.
The Glasgow 2014 organising committee replaced archery and tennis – in which India won 12 medals including four gold four years ago — with triathlon and judo. The martial art returned four medals for India — two silver and two bronze — while triathlon didn’t return a medal. The other disciplines scrapped from the 2010 Games schedule, include the walking events in athletics, in which India had won bronze, and Greco-Roman wrestling.
Seven of the country’s 19 medals in wrestling came in the Greco-Roman category in 2010. Inspite of the reduced events, India managed to win 13 medals in men’s freestyle and women’s wrestling, which was one better than the 12 won in this category in the last edition. India failed to win a gold medal bout in boxing at Glasgow after winning three titles in Delhi. The medal count in the sport fell from seven to five.
A world-class field in athletics resulted in Indians losing out on the medals — down to three from 12. For instance, in Delhi none of the top-10 ranked men’s 100m sprinters in the Commonwealth participated while only one woman from the elite club ran at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.
Discus thrower Vikas Gowda was the only saving grace in athletics, winning gold despite the high level of competition in his event.
