Commonwealth Games 2022 haul shows India's game for diverse sports

Sixty-one medals, across 12 different disciplines, 22 of them gold. A fourth place finish on the medal table. Say it softly, but say it nonetheless. India’s august Commonwealth Games 2022 is a changing of the guard. A blueprint for better times ahead.

That’s despite it not even being as successful as the Games prior — when our athletes romped home with 66 medals and finished third in the table. The difference is the diversity. At the Gold Coast, India’s medals came from eight different sports, four fewer than this time. What’s more, shooting, India’s traditional medal filler, wasn’t part of Birmingham at all.

“That is perhaps the most heartening thing about the performance,” Anju Bobby George says. “In earlier times, we would get medals from shooting, wrestling, boxing, some from badminton... But this time sports that are usually out of the public eye have delivered medallists. It’s a good sign…”

The former long jumper, now vice president of the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) has reason to be upbeat. Athletics delivered eight medals (1 gold, 4 silver, 3 bronze) at Birmingham, and while it didn’t threaten the all time best of 12 from Delhi (2010), this performance was, in many ways sweeter than any before.

“It’s always easier to do it in front of a home crowd,” Anju says. “The support makes a difference, and even the level of competition makes a difference. Again, I would point to the diversity though. Look at the events on the track that we have got medals from, look at Avinash (Sable).”

And Sable perhaps epitomises everything to love about India at CWG 2022. For those who missed it, YouTube will have to do. Sable broke the national record in the 3000m steeplechase — something he has done a scarcely believable nine times, and thrice this year already — en route to silver in Birmingham. That old sports adage, “you don’t win silver, you lose gold”, couldn’t be less true for that race, where Sable broke a Kenyan medal sweep in the event that spanned 24 years.

Speaking after, Sable rued missing out on gold but also displayed what a difference the desire to learn can play. “At the Worlds (where Sable finished a disappointing 11th in one of the slowest races ever) I made the mistake of following others, and doubting myself,” he said. A fortnight of guilt and heartache followed, and every step of the way Sable questioned himself and the team around him. “You start wondering why you are running, if you can’t win,” he said. And despite missing out on an outright win by a mere .05 milliseconds, his silver was evidence that perhaps, just perhaps, Indian sport was genuinely capable of moving forward, multiple hurdles and water obstacles at a time.

Competitive Worth

“Looking from the outside, you can question the worth of a medal very easily, but in the end, they all count,” Pritam Siwach says, talking from her girls’ hockey academy in Sonepat. Siwach was captain of the women’s team when they won gold in 2002. It was a victory immortalised on celluloid and became cult. And yet, despite the fact that <Chak De> was about women’s hockey, in actuality, women’s hockey has been far from mainstream consciousness for a while now.

It took the Olympics to change that. A heartbreaking loss to England in the bronze was the moment that turned the tide. A team that had slowly grown together, from also-rans to rank outsiders to underdogs, was now the dark horses. Coaching reshuffles and a disappointing World Cup followed.

At the Commonwealth Games, India were always expected to get to the final four. Of the other three, England had medalled at the Olympics in Tokyo, Australia were ranked third in the world and New Zealand, were the defending gold medallists. All had reached at least the quarters at the World Cup.

In a tense shootout that Siwach watched from home, the women struck bronze. Four of her academy’s products, Sharmila, Nisha, Neha Goyal and Jyoti, were on the pitch that day, fulfilling a promise long time coming.

“They lost in heartbreaking fashion in the semis to Australia,” Siwach says. “The timer failure, penalty shootout loss left a bad taste in our mouth, but imagine the players…. Mentally bahut dard hota hai (It hurts a lot)…” It was a bronze worth its weight in gold.

“You can say ‘okay, maybe the top two countries were not here’, but that disregards those that were the next in the rankings,” Siwach says. “It’s not a regular thing, remember…”

But while hockey could claim that, the reality is that the Commonwealth Games aren’t the pinnacle of the annual calendar. The best in the world often stay away. In sports like wrestling, weightlifting and even badminton, often, India’s national competitions provide tougher tests. To qualify for the Games in wrestling, is, often enough, half the medal won.

Future Forward

“People can question the worth, ask questions, but at the end of the day it is worth wondering what athletes get from it, too,” Manisha Malhotra, head of sports at JSW, says. While acknowledging a lack of depth in some sports at the Games, Malhotra points towards athletes targeting personal bests and national records as a real sign of progress. “Competitions bring out the best in athletes. I think that is important to remember. If there are national records, personal bests etc. coming at events then you know that sometimes athletes are testing themselves.”

In years past, the Games would serve as a precursor to the Asian Games, which provides, for some events (badminton, table tennis, athletics) a much tougher field. In their absence due to postponement, this is the season’s high. For many Indian athletes, this is the culmination of the 2022 season. Government jobs, promotions, scholarship renewals depend on these results.

With discussions underway on how long these Games can last, perhaps it is — as Siwach and Malhotra both say — best to think about how to serve the athletes best. The idea of the Commonwealth is undoubtedly problematic. The vastness and expense of the Games are no longer sustainable (The games have been held outside the UK and Australia once in the last two decades). With more and more big names choosing to sit it out, this may soon become a fringe event. For Indian sport, the question may become a bit different in the days to come. If Indian sport is truly on the rise, then the Commonwealth Games will serve as a season opener for elite performers. One where youngsters earn their chops and veterans warm up.

Top Three Triumphs
 

Sharath Kamal: Like an ESPN report said, “If Sharath Kamal was a country, he’d finish 16th at the Games.” At 40, the paddler looks far from the twilight of his career. This, his fifth Games, was his most fruitful ever (3 golds, one silver). He played non-stop 11 days for this. Or, maybe, he played his whole life for this.

Lawnbowls women’s fours: You may never watch lawn bowls again, and that’s okay. The fact that Rupa Rani Tirkey, Lovely Choubey, Pinki and Nayanmoni Saikia managed to put a fringe game on the map, and hook a cricket-loving populace to another slow-burn, high-drama sport, is an achievement in itself.

Saurav Ghosal: At 35, Ghosal is Indian squash’s poster boy, a veteran, with multiple Asian titles in his cabinet. But his late career surge has been the stuff of novella. Ghosal beat former champion James Willstrop for bronze at the Games. The real kicker: Ghosal had been coached by James’ father Malcolm for 15 years and dedicated the medal to the Englishman.