In the 2024 Paris Olympics, we saw the best Indian Men’s Hockey team in recent history.
I saw my first major hockey match live in 2012. It was the Olympics qualifying match between India and France. We beat France 8-1 and made our way to the London Olympics after a long gap of eight years. In the 2012 London Olympics, we did not win a single match. It took another eight years for the Indian Men’s Hockey team to land a podium finish at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. In the 2024 Paris Olympics, we saw the best Indian Men’s Hockey team in recent history.
In the 2024 Paris Olympics, their victory was inevitable. The only question was the colour of the medal. As luck would have it, I got to see this live as well.
This journey is not just true for hockey. Most victories at the Olympic level come down to inevitability. They are a product of the compounding effects of training the human mind and body with sophistication. The Olympics, across different sports, pushes the athletes and sportspersons to their peak. It is a test of the miraculous abilities that our physiologies might possess and a celebration of the spirit of competition. As much as the story of the overnight rise to stardom and success sounds enthralling and might make for a great biopic, most athletes will tell you that if they have been consistent with their training, had a clear mind, and have not sustained any severe injuries, they are likely to win a medal.
After watching the gripping India versus Spain men’s hockey bronze medal match, I stuck around for the finals between Germany and the Netherlands. Seated ahead of me was a German family of four, all dressed in white, black and yellow. Watching the match with this group of Germans was fun not just because of their loud enthusiasm, but also because for the first time, I could watch the match without being emotionally invested in it. I could instead be an observant spectator in the stadium instead of an anxious fan praying for her team to win. I used this time to mull over questions I have had for a while: What will it take for India to become a sporting nation? How do we make it inevitable for Indian athletes to win medals?
In the last two decades, sporting infrastructure in India has evolved at an impressive pace. Today more than ever, young athletes from the school level have the required resources and avenues to pursue sports professionally. The combination of public and private capital has created a powerful ecosystem that is now identifying and nurturing sporting talent from an early age. It has given us athletes like Neeraj Chopra and created teams like the current Indian Men’s Hockey squad. Then, where are our medals? In a recent interview, Prakash Padukone answered this question by holding the athletes accountable. He said that it is now on the athletes to reflect on why and where they are missing out. From his perspective, they have all that they need. I don’t completely agree.
For me, the answer lies in the German fans I saw the Olympic men’s hockey finals with.
Throughout the match, along with supporting their team, the family of four was constantly discussing the game itself. Devoid of focusing on individual players and their own emotions, they were appreciating the match for its skill and sophistication. They had specific comments on passes and plays in the match. When Germany lost, they were clearly disappointed. But they knew the game well enough to know that the German team played well, along with some constructive comments on what might have been done differently. For India to become a sporting nation, we need to know our sports better as ordinary citizens and not just our athletes. Sports needs to be celebrated for the inherent value it possesses in expanding human ability. It needs to be appreciated for the human skills it enhances and be considered a way of life.
As much as celebrating Indian athletes is important, appreciating them without understanding the sports leads to either idealisation or vilification.
To become a sporting nation that respects its athletes and performs well in crucial matches, it might help to start by actually playing sports in the first place as a nation. By picking up the hockey stick, javelin, or arrow and giving it a spin. In the case of hockey, this is a reality in states like Punjab and Haryana where most people have played hockey at least once in their life (even if they played badly and for fun). Which is why it is not surprising to see a large number of players coming from these two states and the consistency in their performance.
Between the 2021 and 2024 Olympics, only Neeraj Chopra and the Indian Men’s Hockey team have remained consistent in their performance. If you look at post-match videos from either of the two, their focus on process and consistency is evident. This focus needs to be supported by informed understanding and appreciation from us as an audience. A combination of both, will pave the way for India to realise its potential as a sporting nation.
The writer is a student at Oxford University
