It is time for India to stop believing that it is doing everything for its athletes. The least it can do is ensure that the Field of Play for each discipline in all national-level events and for training is top class, encouraging them to deliver better performances. Until that time, the ecosystem must stop calling itself athlete centric.
For instance, swimmers in ongoing Khelo India University Games were challenged by having to swim in water that was colder than ideal for competitions. Quite inevitably, they turned in performances way below their potential. It was no surprise that one of them posted an Instagram story that read: Someone needs to learn how to conduct tournaments.
Of course, only a bad workman will quarrel with his tools. But it is also true that nobody can dance on a broken floor. And unless the athletes are provided with the right conditions to train and compete in, expecting them to keep improving and challenge the world’s best is an unfair ask.
Olympian Srihari Nataraj is a good case study. He clocked 58.25 seconds in the 100m Backstroke, his pet event. You will get an idea of how poor that time is when you consider his personal best is 53.77 seconds; his best last year was 54.68 seconds; and his best in 2025 is 55.23 seconds in winning a bronze medal in the Asian Championships in Ahmedabad.
Also, the recent deaths of two teenaged basketball players, Aman and Hardik Rathi, when rusted poles supporting the boards crashed on them, has also been the centre of conversations. Ironically, it happened even as the addition of 328 sports infrastructure projects at a cost of Rs 3000 crore is making the rounds
It begs the question if India can provide safe playing environments to its athletes at all levels. It must draw up minimum standards for playfields and sports equipment and perhaps even provide for sports safety engineers to ensure that the facilities at all levels do not put athletes at risk of injury, let alone death.
Surely, everyone in the decision making circles will agree that it is unfair to not be concerned about athlete safety. They can all cite this as the reason to consider redrawing some programmes. It would be the best way to have the cake and eat it too rather than conduct events because some boxes have to be ticked.
If India is keen on raising its profile on the global stage, it must show that it genuinely cares for its athletes who must be the centre of the sports ecosystem and most certainly not an afterthought. Its sports leadership must also understand that unlike other walks of life, sports are driven by the international calendar.
It would also be important to schedule the calendar better. The dates for competitions must be sacrosanct. No event, especially one that is aimed to provide an additional competition to the athlete, should be scheduled after the season has ended like the Khelo India University Games has been. If held some weeks before the World University Games, it will serve greater purpose.
The senior National Championships was held in August, allowing the swimmers time to prepare for the Asian Aquatics Championships in September-October. To expect swimmers to deliver quality times in their races and to judge them on the basis of their times in such poorly scheduled competitions is unfair, to say the least.
It would appear that the sports leadership, with the notable exception of 2008 Olympic Games gold medal winner Abhinav Bindra, are emboldened to Government which funds Olympic disciplines and therefore is hesitant to speak up for athlete welfare. Buffeted between directives of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports and legal compulsions, sports administrators have embraced a forced silence.
It is not just officials of National Sports Federations who are complicit. There has been radio silence from sports NGOs, who are being given increased responsibilities. They have a number of athletes in their ranks but even they seem to have not attempted to impress on powers that be that national competitions must be planned with international calendars in mind.
Photo: Screengrab of DD Sports stream
