The future lies not in the romance of old sporting tales, but on the still-slender shoulders of young dreamers and doers willing to internalise the pride, not the prejudices, of those who preceded them. On those wide-eyed children capable of distilling from the trials, tribulations, and successes of designated demi-gods of the past to realise their own truth and path into the unknown future.
Twenty-five years from now, when India will have enjoyed and endured the weight of independence for 100 years, Indian sport will have assumed a different identity. After all, history has taught us what was 25 years ago is not what is now.
Cricket was at the forefront of injecting professionalism into Indian sport, and it has reaped the rewards by becoming the most successful sport in the country. While an undying wave of support and genius-level marketing has played a role, one cannot deny BCCI’s attention to detail through the years.
There is no denying that badminton, wrestling, boxing and the likes have grown with incandescence, and the marked improvement in track and field events at the recently-concluded Commonwealth Games has given birth to new hope, but it would be naive to assume that there would be consistency going forward.
The viewpoint stems from the fact there were 13 years between Abhinav Bindra’s individual gold at the Beijing Olympics and Neeraj Chopra’s triumph at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.
In the earlier cases, and most others too in the past, the Indian Olympics Association and the Sports Authority of India played a rather small role.
In fact, even now, some of the success in an Olympic sport is despite the system and not because of the system, and until that changes, there is no reason to believe that the career of an Indian athlete is secure.
In 25 years, we will have enough to complain about. Let’s just hope it’s not about the same things we have whinged about for the last 75 years.