Tag: Firstindianwomanolympicmedal

How Much Does India Invest In Olympic Athletes?

Postponed by a year due to the pandemic, the Tokyo Olympics is now less than a month away. Last week, the Union Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju urged the people to extend their support to India’s Olympic-bound athletes, the same way they back India’s cricketers. However, India’s abysmal performances at the Olympics is in striking contrast to India’s immense success at cricket. The model of sports governance and financial irregularities are often blamed for the lack of competitive edge in sports other than cricket. So, the most obvious question that comes to our mind is, how much does India invest in the Olympics?

Money allocated for Sports

In the 2020-21 annual budget, the Government of India allocated Rs 2826.92 crore for sports, which meant an increase of mere ₹ 50 crore from the revised estimates of the financial year 2019-20. The Modi government’s flagship sports programme ‘Khelo India’ received a substantial hike of ₹ 312.42 crore and was allocated ₹ 890.42 crore compared to ₹578 crore in 2019-20. On the other hand, the National Sports Development Fund saw a reduction of ₹ 27.15 crore from ₹77.15 crore in 2019-20 to ₹ 50 crore in 2020-21. National Sports Federations saw the highest decrease after Finance Minister allocated ₹ 245 crore, ₹ 55 crore less than the previous financial year, according to The Wire. Even the budget for meritorious sportspersons saw a 40% reduction from the last financial year. It is important to note that the 2020-21 annual budget was presented in January 2020, when the government had no idea of the coming pandemic. It was also supposed to be the year of the Tokyo Olympics.

Target Olympic Podium Scheme

While these are the broad schemes under which Indian sportspersons are funded, the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) provides financial assistance to potential Olympic medal winners. Launched in 2014, TOPS is the flagship programme of the Sports Ministry of India. The top-up funding scheme considers the performance of Indian athletes in the past three years. They are provided with personal coaches and other staff fees, cost of travel during competitions, purchase of equipment, and pocket allowance.

Looking Back At The Last Olympics

In the 2016 Rio Olympic, India spent ₹ 36.85 crore under TOPS, as per Financial Express. Nearly half of that amount was spent on shooting, which was India’s most successful Olympic sport in the previous three games. Shooting is also very expensive, which requires importing equipment from other countries. But shooting failed to bring any medal. Athletics received the second-highest funding of ₹ 7.80 crore in 2016, but India failed to make a mark in the sport. Unfortunately, out of the ₹ 36.85 crore, ₹30.49 crore had gone to disciplines that fell short of goals. Only 1.66 per cent of the total TOPS fund went to the fields that brought India two medals – PV Sindhu in Badminton and Sakshi Malik in wrestling.

Comparison With Other Countries

The United Kingdom allocated close to Rs 9000 crore on sports infrastructure and training in the annual sports budget, whereas India spent only one-third of the UK, Rs 3,200 crore, on youth affairs and sports, before 2016. The UK won 67 medals against India’s two at the Rio Games 2016. Abhinav Bindra had also tweeted back in 2016 that a medal cost UK 5.5 million pounds, and that is the kind of investment India needs to make. Otherwise, we cannot expect much. In the USA, a large number of athletes are privately funded. Individual athletes had started their own funding portal for donations from the general public. Therefore, only 10% of the US Olympic Committee’s finance was spent on athletes in Rio 2016, and the USA finished first. China, on the other hand, is known for its aggressive state-sponsored promotion of sports.

Private Investment In India

Before the 2016 Olympics, Indian Olympic Association (IOA) received donations from Reliance Jio, Amul, Tata Salt, Edelweiss Financial Services, Herbalife, Li Ning, and SBJ. Sakshi Malik had also thanked JSW Sport, a foundation funded by the OP Jindal group, after becoming India’s first medal winner in Rio Games, as reported by Hindustan Times.

However, unlike NSDF, where the contributions and sponsorships are open and documented, private funding to individual athletes is not. And most recently, the JSW Group has come on board to be the official sponsor of Team India in the Tokyo Olympics and has agreed to pledge sponsorship support of ₹ 1 crore to IOA. In 2018, the Sports Ministry earmarked ₹ 100 crore for funding of the athletes for the preparation of Tokyo Olympics 2020, which will take place this year. While the number of medals won cannot be equated to the investments made, since medals are not the only measure of success, India nonetheless needs to invest more and put in a new model of sports governance in action. A

Karnam Malleswari – Torch-bearer for women in Olympics

Karnam Malleswari is the first Indian woman to win a medal at the Olympics and first Indian woman weightlifter to win gold at the World Championships.

Saikhom Mirabai Chanu made India proud by getting India’s first medal at Tokyo Olympics 2021. She won silver medal in weightlifting am being the first Indian lifter to do so. But, most of us realized now about first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal in 2000 (Sydney). She won Bronze medal in weightlifting in 2000. Let us remember Honorable Karnam Malleswari.

Karnam Malleswari :-

She was born on 1 June 1975, Voosavanipeta near Amadalavalasa, a hamlet in Andhra Pradesh. Her father Karnam Manohar was a college-level football player. She has four sisters. They are all well trained in weightlifting. It was her mother Shyamala, who encouraged and became her strength till the end Karnam Malleswari to pursue a dream. Her career started when she was 12. She was trained under coach Neelamshetty Appanna.

I feel proud to have created this pathway for our girls and to see them winning Olympic medals. Some even tell me today, ‘Ma’am you started it all’, so I feel delighted to have changed the perception, and it still remains my endeavor.

But Neelamshetty Appanna turned her away for being too weak and thin. Her mom encouraged her to keep going by training hard and proving herself that she can be whoever she wants to be. She was then noticed by Olympic and world champion Leonid Taranenko at a national camp ahead of 1990 Asian camp as a visitor since her sister Krishna Kumari, was selected for the camp. After testing her, he recommend her to the Bangalore Sports Institute.

It was her time to start shining, she broke 9 records in junior national weightlifting championships in 1990; which was her first championship.

Achievements:

  • Silver in her maiden senior national championship in 1990.
  • Bronze in her first weightlifting World Championships in 1993.
  • Gold in her next weightlifting World Championships in 1994, making her the first Indian woman weightlifter to win gold at the World Championships.
  • Silver at the 1994 Asian Games.
  • Malleswari won the world title in the 54 kg division in 1994 and 1995. Gold in World Championships in 1995.
  • Bronze in the World Championships in 1996. – Four consecutive medals in World Championships-
  • Silver at the 1998 Asian Games.
  • Bronze in the Olympics Game at Sydney in 2000.

In 1997, she married a fellow weightlifter Rajesh Tyagi, and in 2001 gave birth to a son. She took a maternity leave in 2001. She went to The Olympics at Athens in 2004 but due to severe back injury, she couldn’t give her best. She had to retire after that.

What is she doing now?

She works as the Chief General Manager (General Administration) of Food Corporation of India; Yamunanagar, Haryana.

Awards:

  1. Honored with Arujna Award in 1994.
  2. Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna in 1999.
  3. Padma Shri Award in 1999.

NEWS:

On International Olympic Day 2021, the Delhi government appointed India’s first woman Olympic medal winner Karnam Malleshwari as the first vice-chancellor of Delhi Sports University.

REFERENCES:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karnam_Malleswari

https://olympics.com/en/featured-news/karnam-malleswari-india-weightlifting