India’s performance at the 2018 Commonwealth Games (CWG) at Gold Coast, which concluded on Sunday, has been a commendable effort by the 200-strong contingent. The country produced its third best medal haul with 66 medals “ an improvement by two medals from the last edition in Glasgow. The 2010 Delhi Games remain a benchmark where 101 medals were won, while Manchester 2002 stands out as the nation’s second best effort with 69 medals.
At Gold Coast, India finished third on the medal tally behind Australia (198) and England (136) with many athletes producing stunning individual, record-breaking performances, while teams -- especially the table tennis contingent -- securing historic finishes across the 11-day event. There were brilliant individual performances from teen shooting trio of Manu Bhaker, Mehuli Ghosh and Anish Bhanwala, an incredible performance by Manika Batra in table tennis, while Neeraj Chopra’s gold in javelin throw was a sight for sore Indian eyes. Also coming to the fore were the experienced veterans -- shuttler Saina Nehwal, wrestler Sushil Kumar and boxer MC Mary Kom, again proving that age remains just a number for a true champion.
Manika, perhaps in the form of her life, dished out a breakthrough campaign to finish as the most decorated individual performer at the Gold Coast Games. The 22-year-old paddler clinched a historic individual gold, a team gold, a women’s doubles silver and a mixed doubles bronze. The biggest disappointment however was the performance of the two hockey teams. Both the men’s and women’s teams lost their bronze medal matches to finish fourth. Although it was an improvement for the women by one place from the last edition, for men it was an extraordinarily poor result after finishing as silver-medallists in 2010 and 2014.
These Games were also another reminder of how unprofessional and irresponsible our sports officialdom is. Indian sports and controversy are never far apart and the country was left red-faced even before the Games started when a team doctor earned a strong reprimand for failure to comply with the Games’ ‘no needles’ rule. More humiliating was a second incident where the CWG officials sent two Indian athletes home, after a needle was found in their room.
Apart from the embarrassment of getting bad press, it’s another strong wake-up call for Indian sports bosses that there needs to be a complete overhaul of systems that check doping among Indian athletes, whether it is done at the behest of coaches or by individuals. Apart from that, these Games will be counted as one of the feel-good performances in Indian sport. Continuing with the government’s Khelo India programme, the time is right to amp up the support structure for various sports in the country. The promise of today, is the future of tomorrow for Indian sport.
