Churning after state’s poor show in National Games

SHILLONG, Oct 16: Meghalaya, Nagaland and the three union territories of Lakshadweep, Ladakh and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu failed to win any medals in the 36th National Games that concluded recently in Gujarat.
Meghalaya was at the bottom of the medal tally, underlining the dismal performance of the state’s athletes in the National Games held after a gap of seven years. In the previous edition of the games held in Kerala in 2015, Meghalaya had won three medals – a gold, a silver and a bronze.
The Meghalaya contingent for the 2022 Games consisted of 12 athletes and 15 officials, including coaches and managers.
Among other states in the Northeast, Manipur returned with 50 medals (20 gold, 10 silver and 20 bronze); Assam bagged 28 medals (9 gold, 10 silver and 9 bronze); Arunachal Pradesh won 7 medals (6 gold and 1 silver); Tripura won 3 medals (2 gold and 1 bronze); Mizoram bagged 4 medals (1 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze) while Sikkim won a bronze medal.
While there is no denying the fact that the athletes did their best, Meghalaya’s dismal performance could have been the result of multiple reasons.
The Shillong Times attempted to find out some of the probable causes behind this latest debacle.
When Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Banteidor Lyngdoh was approached, he said the state still lacks the sports infrastructure to allow the athletes to train and prepare themselves.
He said there are no professional coaches for training the athletes in various sports disciplines.
“We need to promote and encourage our young athletes to take sports as a professional career. We also need to re-strategise the nurturing of our sports talents by selecting the disciplines they are good at,” Lyngdoh said.
He said the government needs to have a long-term goal and invest in infrastructure to train the athletes at a very young age.
“As of now, our athletes are good in football and contact sports. We need to nurture our athletes in other sporting disciplines too after providing good training facilities. We also need to rope in professional coaches and trainers for our athletes,” Lyngdoh said.
Stating that sports in Meghalaya is still in a very nascent stage, he said the athletes need all the necessary support to show results in major national sporting events. He also said the government needs to invest in athletes with the right attitude and commitment to do well.
“We also need to host sports events on a regular basis to allow the athletes to compete among themselves as a stepping stone to bigger stages,” Lyngdoh said.
The upcoming North East Olympics to be hosted by Meghalaya will be a trial for the athletes to showcase their talents, he added.
On the implementation of the State Sports Policy, he said the department will soon come up with the operational manual to implement the policy.
“The policy will focus on tapping the sporting talent from the school level to the university level. It will not work if the policy is restricted within the different sports associations,” he said.
Lyngdoh also said the trials should be fair by ensuring that only deserving athletes are selected to represent the state in any national sports event.
Meghalaya State Olympics Association (MSOA) working president, John F Kharshiing said the development of sports is two-way traffic.
“Things are happening at the Centre now with the revival of the National Games after seven years. The hosting of such games is important to produce athletes,” he said.
Kharshiing said the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports is doing its part to revive the games by pushing allocation.
“The allocation of funds by the ministry has increased by 400 times if you compare 2011 with 2020,” he said, adding that the discussion on why Meghalaya does not do well at the National Games should have been 10 years ago.
“We need to pump in funds. There should be a substantial increase in the allocation where athletes and associations are supported and funded to participate in various championships,” Kharshiing said.
He cited a study that says the UK spends 5.5 million pounds per medal and $1.5 billion (Rs 9,000 crore) on sports infrastructure and training through an annual sports budget.
India spends a third of the UK or $500 million dollars (Rs 3,200 crore) on sports. In the UK, the funding for Olympic preparations is four times that of India, he pointed out.
“Having the State Games after a gap of 16 years (in 2020 after 2004) has not helped. In the last four years, we have had two Meghalaya Games. I am now happy since the government plans to hold the event annually,” Kharshiing said.
“Why we got zero medals in Gujarat is because the seed is being planted only now,” he said.
Had the state government invested the money in sports 10 years ago, sportspersons of Meghalaya could have been in the reckoning for medals, he added.
“The allocation for sports in the state increased after the sports policy was notified in 2019, the youth policy in 2021 and the talent identification programme in July 2022. The state government can keep Rs 500 crore in a fixed deposit and the interest on it can be used for sports. Athletes should not be stressed out looking for funds to travel for competition,” he said.
Kharshiing said he was not disappointed with the performance of the athletes since some of them were exposed to an event on the scale of the 36th National Games for the first time.
He also stated the Meghalaya Games should be hosted every year to push the athletes for greater glory.
The MSOA working president said the recent increase in cash awards has been a good incentive and would motivate the athletes to work harder.
He lamented the inability of the state Olympic association to garner sponsorship of any national-level event.
Pointing out that the State Sports Policy should be a guiding document, he said the department is working on the operation manual for implementing the policy.
“We now have better working arrangements between the sports department and different sports associations through the MSOA. We are trying to put in place the best working system,” Kharshiing said.
He claimed Meghalaya is the first state to implement the talent identification programme with the assistance of Ian Campbell, an Olympian from Australia.
This programme, he said, has identified around 200 athletes with certain benchmarks to be put into a special pathway programme.
“We are still in discussion with the state government to have a performance and monitoring centre. We are getting inputs from the experts to set up such infrastructure,” he said.
Kharshiing said the government is coming up with the Khelo India Centre for Excellence for three disciplines.
“But the MSOA is pushing for sports performance and monitoring, which will assist the coaches and athletes to assess their strengths and weaknesses. We need to adopt scientific methods to be able to achieve,” he said.