Wanted: Sporting Officials

What the just concluded Asian Games in Guangzhou is that sports organisations and officials should do some serious soul-searching about the lacklustre performance our squad recorded. The medal standing alone is not the full story. It goes to the credit of karate and kabaddi that respectively fetched Nepal’s silver and bronze apiece. Forty-one out of 45 contingents from various parts of Asia figured in the medal table. Although China grabbed nearly half of the gold, 26 others shared the rest of the prized yellow metal. 

A high-level probe team is required to identify what really ails our sports sector and which measures are to be taken for appreciable improvement marked by consistency and a measure of modest predictability of a positive type. Basking in past glory and exhibiting crass complacency will wear off the essential element of accountability. International exposure helps talents. But participation for the sake of participation spoils the show deep in the general community of athletes and sports lovers. Performance auditing should help. In an enormously competitive field, casual attitude cannot deliver quality. A scintillating show at home notwithstanding, the test of standards growth is in South Asian Games followed by yet bigger competitions.

Quest for quality 

There’s a vast difference in breaking records and winning medals in national meets and international contests. The challenges are uphill when competing in Asian Games. The Olympics is a sphere where Nepal is decades away from any credible participation, not to speak of snatching a medal of any metal. The gap in national records against the existing Asian and world records itself exhibits the ground reality. Narrowing the wide differences between Nepali athletes’ best personal performances and the international meet’s best exacts inherently stupendous challenges. A brilliant athlete at home could pale into insignificance by average Asian standards.

This brings into focus the case of the American swimmer Mark Spitz, one of the greatest Olympians, who won seven record-breaking gold medals. His record tally lasted for 36 years before another fellow national, Michael Phelps, collected eight gold medals in the Beijing edition of the world’s biggest sporting spectacle. “Mark the Shark” had picked two gold, a silver and a bronze in the 1968 Mexico meet, thus subsequently improving, in the Munich Games, his total to 11 medals covering the two quadrennials. Twenty years after his Munich splash, Spitz tested the waters to gauge his prospects in the 1992 Barcelona Olympiad. In the selection trials, he realised the prospects for him stood poor. The records he had set in 1972 would not even make him eligible for the Games’ heats. He then abandoned the idea of a comeback for good.

The wide gap in Nepal’s national and international performances is something virtually all sports scribes ignore in their reporting. It is not a question of being sympathetic to athletes but setting the records straight by news disseminators supposed to be publicly filing the first drafts of history. They could at least give a comparative analysis in curtain raisers on the eve of major meets or in the roundups after the events end. These are basics generally meted out with indifference. Often, getting past the early rounds becomes a severe test.

Spotting potential talents early on and encouraging them to engage in the regular routine of rigorous practice and training, backed by frequent competitions at a variety of local, provincial and national levels, constitute the basic prerequisite for consistently improved performances. Increment in the number of tournaments strictly following an annual calendar of events and probably in coordination with the respective national sports agencies should offer a pattern of opportunities for exposure to athletes at schools, colleges, corporate houses, professional sectors, clubs and the like. This would foster vertical as well as horizontal developments crisscrossing the length and breadth of the country round the year. Thus, better prospects in international meets would be a realistic hope.

Sparks of talents deserve due encouragement and incentives for better prospects in terms of Asian standards and gradually develop fighting chances of making it to notable rounds in world championships and the Olympics. Otherwise, a rare good performance would prove to be nothing of a consistent pillar but just a flash in the pan. This means adoption of a regular regimen of gruelling engagements covering the home schedules that culminate in many contests for meritorious exposure and experience. 

The next move

Whereas the 1986 Asian Games in Seoul broke the 35 years of Nepal’s uninterrupted medal drought, the subsequent 37 years have not surpassed the tally of eight bronzes — four each in taekwondo and boxing in an Asiad. Now that our contingent returns home in a sobering mood, karate and kabaddi players should be thanked for preventing a complete medal drought. They offer a breather of sorts. Although a vital aspect, money is not the sole factor in sports. Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan were not without medals. And, India expectedly had in its kitty more than 20 gold medals plus more of other denominations to be placed fourth in the medal standings. Bhutan and the Maldives are the only South Asian teams that drew a blank in Hangzhou. 

What the Hangzhou competitions signalled is that reaching the quarter-finals in any discipline by a Nepali athlete would itself be a big achievement, whether a national record is improved or not. It was the newly introduced taekwondo that fetched Nepal’s first Asian Games medal quickly followed by three more in the same discipline in Seoul. That year’s four boxing bronzes in Nepal’s bag now seems to be almost unreal. The promising start taekwondo made in the South Korean capital with such gusto drew a blank in Hangzhou. Consistency in performances is the hallmark of quality maintained by individual players and competing teams. 

To look forward, setting priorities for sports disciplines is the first important task. Budgetary allocations should match accordingly. Annual sports calendars ought to be announced well on time and measures taken to ensure that follow-up activity strictly stick to it. Officials of National Sports Council and Nepal Olympic Committee need to listen to the stern wake up call. They should be held accountable. Just as they deserve commendation for athletes’ doing well in international competitions, they should, surely, own up responsibility for disheartening demonstrations as well.     

(Professor Kharel specialises in political communication.)