GOAL, CHAKDE INDIA & TEAM GOLD

India today last fortnight carried on article on team sports lack of achievements but shining in Individual sports. It made me think why the aspirations of Indians in major sports remain unfulfilled for decades. In Invididual sports, we are shining in some areas but in core athletics, we are nowhere near. Hopefully the current programs under Khelo India might lead to some achievements in 2024 Olympics. States like Odisha have increased outlay, 400 cr this year to sports. Odisha has extended its current sponsorship of Indian men’s and women’s hockey teams for a period of another 10 years.

2020 Summer Olympics has Hockey, Volleyball,Basketball, Water Polo, Hockey, Handball,Football and Rugby. India's recent haul of 7 medals including a gold in olympics was all in individual sports not team sports. The last team gold that India was in Hockey in 1980 Moscow Olympics led by Vasudevan Bhaskaran. It has been 41 years hence. We have not won a single team gold ever since in Olympics.  

This speaks highly about education system in India which focuses on Academic Achievement rather than sports activities.Schools follow rote mode of learning and parents are keen on their children getting into IITs/good engineering colleges leading path to a software career rather than working their way into other careers. This has led to a drought in sporting talent in this country. Majority of the private schools in this country do not even have a playground. The talented ones that have pushed forward are those whose parents supported them through their schooling and college to take up sports. Under Khelo India, talented students have been identified for further training. 

Team sports need extroverts to succeed. Introverts can be sometimes bane for team sports and are more suited for individual sports where their success or failure entirely depends on their own performance. We all have played in teams in schools and colleges and have enjoyed the camaraderie but at the same time have many times felt that situations could have been different if a team player had indeed played differently. There was fun playing football or hockey or cricket in teams. At the same time, the thrill of winning in a 100 mts rice in school was exciting. 

Training in a team or practising in a team was always fun. The loss or gain is equally distributed and no one person takes official blame though unofficially blame game keeps shifting. It builds the necessary skillsets for people interaction and cooperation between team members which really helps when working in teams later on in life. In a team, everyone has to contribute to success. One person's failure reflects on entire team. Secondly, it forces u to accept others strengths and weaknesses and adapt to them for the team's collective success. 

Those low on confidence manytimes do much better in team sports than Individual sports. At the same time,as we all have seen in our own lives, politics, egos,nepotism does play a crucial role in team sports. Despite the success of the team dependent on everyone's contribution, just a few are highlighted & the rest ignored by society and media. This makes a few popular, well known and this goes into their head. Team suffers. 

Individual sports are useful for introverts who are reserved, drawn into themselves and those who believe in their own self esteem. While sometimes training alone can be tough, joining sports academy or training with coach helps for individuals than training individually. When they lose, they have to shoulder the loss/blame on themselves. A win is refreshing but a loss becomes a burden to carry.