Olympics | The role of NGOs and CSR in creating champions

From finishing 41st at the Rio Olympics 2016 to fourth place in Tokyo, Indian golfer Aditi Ashok has come a long way. (Source: Twitter/@aditigolf)

During a recent interview with a news channel, golfer Aditi Ashok interrupted the news anchor. “Sometimes, I feel TOPS is not designed for golfers,” said Ashok, who finished fourth in the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, while referring to the central government’s Target Olympic Podium Scheme.

She added that she had once reached out to a (sports) foundation (for help) and they said, “we are watching you. Then one Olympics came and went and the second one is here and ‘we are still watching you’. I have moved on.” Ashok indicated that she could have done better in Tokyo had there been an adequate budget and financial assistance for golfers.

The lack of assistance, financial or otherwise, is not a new lament among Indian sportspeople because of a historical administrative apathy towards them. Budgetary spending on sport in India has usually been minimal. While the allocation for India’s flagship sports programme, Khelo India, may have gone up from Rs. 97.52 crore in 2016 to Rs. 890.92 crore in 2020, it was reduced to Rs. 657.71 crore in 2021-22. In fact, the total sports allocation for 2021-22 went down by 8.16 percent from the previous year, showing an inconsistent interest in boosting sport.

Investing In Athletes

According to a news report, the government spent Rs. 4.85 crore on Neeraj Chopra, for training and competition overseas for the 450 days leading up to the Tokyo Olympics. Based on a calculation from a BBC report, Great Britain, which finished fourth in the overall medals tally with 65 medals, spent about £4million (~Rs 40 crore) per participant in athletics.

The reason why grievances such as Ashok’s are less frequently heard over the last decade or so is because of the initiatives shown by non-governmental organisations and the corporate social responsibility (CSR) arms of big businesses. Efforts of firms such as the two-decade-old Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ), GoSports Foundation and JSW Sports, among others, have given Indian Olympic sportspeople more than a foot up.

Stake Holders Join HandsFor example, Chopra who won the gold in javelin throw, and Bajrang Punia who won the bronze in wrestling are both supported by JSW. Fencer Bhavani Devi, who became the first Indian in the discipline at the Olympics, has help from GoSports. Badminton bronze winner PV Sindhu, silver-winning lifter Mirabai Chanu and wrestler Ravi Kumar are aided by OGQ.

Besides, the TOPS scheme and efforts of individual sports federations have helped along in ensuring that athletes get the best of access to facilities, sports medicine, training, physiotherapy, mental training, injury management, rest, recovery and education in best practices.

“There are many stake holders involved,” says Viren Rasquinha, the chief executive officer of OGQ. “The government, SAI (Sports Authority of India), sports federations and in the last decade, NGOs are part of the ecosystem. What was better in this cycle (since 2016 Rio) is that previously we were working in silos. This time, in most cases, we worked together. The best example is Mirabai, for who TOPS, Indian Weightlifting Federation and OGQ worked closely to make sure all gaps were taken care of — foreign exposure, conditioning expert and injury management. That is the way forward.”

Private Players
The role played by private entities can be gauged by India’s improvement at the Olympics — it took 108 years, since Paris 1900, for India to win an individual Olympic gold medal, with Abhinav Bindra in 2008. Beijing then gave India its best haul at the Olympics — three medals — which got better in London 2012 with six. Any hopes of a further surge in medal count went with just two at Rio de Janeiro in 2016. But Tokyo brought a ‘record’ performance with seven medals — one gold, two silver and four bronze. Further evidence of India’s growing prowess is in that of the over 120 athletes in Tokyo, 55 (i.e. 46 percent) reached the quarterfinals and better, while in Rio, about 20 out of 118 (i.e. 17 percent) got that far.

Two of the women’s hockey stars, Rani Rampal and Savita Punia, were among the first to get scholarships from GoSports over a decade ago. The women’s hockey team finished fourth at the Olympics. Table tennis player G Sathiyan was ranked in the 200s when he started with the foundation before getting into the top 25 over an eight-year period.

GoSports executive director Deepthi Bopaiah says CSR, which included sport as part of nation building, has a significant role to play in the growth of sport over the last 4-5 years. It’s because of such funding that Bhavani Devi could stay in Italy for 6-8 months in preparation for Tokyo. GoSports, which used to get grants of Rs. 50,000 now gets up to Rs. 18 lakh. They spend between Rs. 6-8lakh on an athlete’s performance per year.

Amid the euphoria of this relatively rich medal haul are also a few setbacks. The shooting contingent, one of India’s strengths, returned without a medal. The numbers from wrestling and boxing were fewer than expected. Ashok, who was in the top three for most of the golf event, missed a medal by a whisker as did wrestler Deepak Punia. The final count was much lesser than what some surveys predicted, 15-17 medals.

Long Term Investments

Statistically, seven would not seem to be a large improvement from the six medals in London nine years ago. But that’s not how sports’ stakeholders see it, looking at it as a long-term investment.

“Getting medals is a goal but not the only one,” says Bopaiah, whose organisation supported 14 of the participants in Tokyo. “…You may say its only seven medals but it’s amazing we got to it despite the archery team, or we would have crossed double digits.”

“At the Olympics, it’s all about handling the pressure,” says Rasquinha, who represented India in hockey in the 2004 Athens Games. “Wins and defeats happen to the best, like (world No. 1 tennis player Novak) Djokovic lost there. (Johannes) Vetter, who has thrown over 90 meters seven times in 2021, did 82.52m. On that day, it boils down to handling pressure. To win you have to be fearless — Neeraj does it well.”

Rasquinha takes the example of hockey, in which India has lost in the final five minutes of crucial games several times over the years. In Tokyo, the team won its matches in the dying minutes, like against Argentina. The men beat Germany, a “ruthlessly efficient” team in the bronze medal match after holding on to a one-goal lead for 12 minutes. The women’s team scored the winner in the final three minutes against Ireland and beat South Africa 4-3 after the decisive goal came in the 49th minute.

The increased exposure that athletes have got, like Devi’s stint in Europe, has also added to the players’ confidence. Rasquinha also credits Chopra’s big stage temperament and fearlessness, an attribute shared by the hockey players.

Whether India improves upon this mark in Paris 2024 is a matter of guesswork, but Rasquinha says their sights are set on the 2028 and 2032 Games, because whatever needs to be done for the next edition is already set in motion. “We must understand that the brick-and-mortar approach does not make champions. Culture builds champions. Money is not the sole requirement to build culture.”

Arun Janardhan is a Mumbai-based freelance writer-editor.

Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.