INTERNATIONAL NEWS

A little more than a fortnight before the qualification gates closed in athletics, 23 Indians had made the cut for the Olympics if one included the women’s mile relay team that was dancing between the 12th and 14th spots in the Rio rankings.

But there was a big rush soon after that with another 13 making the grade, eight of them grabbing last-minute berths.

A total of 83 Indians went to the 2012 London Olympics, but this time the number has swelled to 120, and athletics and the women’s hockey team are the big reasons.

While track and field brought in 22 more athletes than London, where the number was just 14, the women’s hockey team — back at the Summer Games after 36 years — provided 16 players to the Rio contingent.

India has never had such a big team at the Olympics and the Central Government’s Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS), which made it a lot easier for the athletes to train and compete abroad, could be one of the reasons for this big number.

“Normally before the Olympics and the World championships, the support (Government funding) would start six months before the event. But for the Rio Olympics, we started almost two years ago, so that way, I would say TOPS has been a big success,” said Olympian Anju Bobby George, the chairperson of TOPS and the country’s lone World championship medallist.

The scheme also made it easier for athletes to choose their training base.

Wrestling and shooting were the big winners, bringing a silver and bronze medal each at the last Olympics, and this year the wrestlers were in Bulgaria and, more recently, Spain to fine-tune their skills for Rio.

The 12-member shooting team, a mix of young and old which includes 2008 gold medallist Abhinav Bindra, 2012 bronze winner Gagan Narang and Asian Games gold medallist Jitu Rai, who is ranked among the world’s top three in the 10m air pistol and 50m pistol events, is also bigger than the side in London and brimming with confidence too.

For many in the Indian team for Rio, qualifying for the Olympics was the big goal, they gave their all towards it, but the shooters could be among the few who will be targeting medals. But medals or not, for sheer impact, no one will attract more attention than Tripura’s Dipa Karmakar, who made history as the first Indian woman gymnast to qualify for the Olympics and then finished fifth in the vault at the World championship.

Incidentally, although she received many offers to train abroad, Dipa opted to train at home.

Home, and the Gopi Chand Academy in Hyderabad, has also been the best place to be for the Indian badminton team though its stars like London Olympics bronze medallist Saina Nehwal, P.V. Sindhu and K. Srikanth have been active on the international circuit and close to the world’s best.

Meanwhile, the track and field stars opted to train in places like South Africa, Turkey and Poland which helped them produce some unbelievable world-class performances.

The men’s hockey team, coached by Dutchman Roelant Oltmans and captained by the inspiring P.R. Sreejesh, also appears to have come good at the right time.

The team has had ample exposure trips and is on a wonderful run with medals in the Incheon Asian Games, Glasgow Commonwealth Games, World League in Raipur and the recent Champions Trophy in London.

India came back from the 2012 Summer Games with six medals — two silver and four bronze — its best-ever haul at the Olympics.

Still, for a country with a population of over 1.2 billion and which boasts one of the world’s largest economies, it is a less than impressive tally.

If one adjusts a country’s medal tally to its population and the size of its economy, India is virtually at the bottom of both tables. The nation has a long way to go.