How indian sports federations have ruined their sports, with a few exceptions.
If anyone has followed the history of Indian sports, most will know about a golden streak in Indian hockey from 1928 to 1940: four straight Olympic golds before the World Wars intervened, and the 1940 and 1944 Olympics were not held. Indian hockey returned with two more golds in London in 1948 and Helsinki in 1952. Players of the caliber of wizard Dhyan Chand and Roop Singh, among a galaxy of stars, played for India. After independence, the federation was established as an autonomous body to run sports, as required by the Olympic Charter, and funded by the sports authorities.
At that time india even had great football teams at the 1956 Olympics, and gold medal asian games team featuring Chuni Goswami, Balaram P. K. Bannerjee, and Jarnail Singh, among others coached by our own people, Guardiola, called Rahim Sahib. It also produced athletes like Milkha Singh and Gurbachan Singh Randhawa, among others, with Milkha winning gold at the 1958 Cardiff Commonwealth Games, double golds at Asian 1958, and topping it off with a fourth-place finish at the 1960 Olympics.
In badminton, Prakash Mathai had reached the All England finals in the late forties. So much for Indian sports to be proud of, but it seems to be something for the federation to come, establish control, and destroy all the world-class achievements. Take football, where it stands today with the current football federation after ten years of the ISL calling world-class teams like Brazil and Uruguay, rather than building from our grassroots and respecting our talent.
Hockey also went medalless from 1980 to 2021; at the Tokyo Olympics, we got a bronze after 41 years, thanks largely to Mr. Naveen Patnaik, who bolstered hockey, sponsored the Indian team, and hosted World Championships in Odisha.
In athletics, we now have at least one athlete who has won gold and silver. Swimming is a no-hope as of now. Tennis, which had greats like Ramanathan, Krishnan, and Amritraj; individual semi-finalists and quarter-finalists at major slams; and entered the Davis Cup final in 1974, is now, for the first time in 40 years, medal-less even at the Asian Games. You know politics in every federation: football, hockey, tennis, wrestling, you name it. It’s time to evaluate where and how we can improve. Vote Chori is hotly contested on the streets in politics, but no one cares about a sporting movement
