Happy New Year: Look where most of India’s medals come from — village & town, under Rs 5-lakh annual income, farmers’ families | Sport-others News

Raising a heptathlete daughter was a struggle for a father banking on the earnings of his tiny tea shack in Ballari, Karnataka. That isn’t much of an issue for a coffee plantation owner in Coorg whose son, early on, decided that tennis was his calling.A petrol pump station attendant in Faridabad cut corners — injured, he is out of a job now — so that his daughter could pursue her track-and-field dreams. Two states away, the family of a pol shooter from Mandi didn’t have to stretch — they own a petrol pump.
A hockey forward’s father has a small sari shop in Varanasi while a Chennai-based tennis player’s parents run a textile business. A sprinter’s father is a waiter at a hotel in Pallakad; a badminton star’s family owns a hotel in Mumbai.

On the face of it, a typical India story, written across the sprawl of geography and the hard divides of class and social circumstances. Yet, this year end, these are also 256 Happy New Year postcards, from today’s India to tomorrow’s.
For, these athletes grew up in worlds apart and had it not been for sports — and their excellence — their paths would have never intersected. As they did this year, in September-October 2023 when, at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, they stepped up to the podium to get India its record 107 medals: a combined effort of 58 individuals and 49 teams.
Son of a daily wager from Sonbhadra in UP, Ram Baboo (his home above) worked under NREGS in Covid. He won a race-walking bronze.
In all, these athletes, and the personal and professional arc of each, tell a story of their belief in sports as their level playing field, flattened the sheer dint of their talent and determination and backed up institutional support and a rapidly reforming ecosystem.
Why sports are a great leveller
Since the Games ended, 15 reporters of The Indian Express tracked each one in the Asian contingent down, curated their personal data, got the athletes to fill a questionnaire that detailed their remarkable backstories. An investigation of these show telling trends shaping India’s ever-evolving sporting ecosystem at whose core is an inescapable fact: sports is becoming more of a great leveller.

Consider the key findings of the investigation into the 256 athletes.
* The female-male percentage ratio among the medal winners was 43:57, pointing to a shrinking gender gap when it comes to sporting success. Two decades ago, the ratio was approximately 36:64 and at the 2018 edition, it stood at roughly 40:60.
* As many as 68 of the 256 podium finishers – just over a quarter — were born and raised in one of the top 25 cities population. Rural areas account for a third of the medalls.
* Homes with daily wagers as heads of families gave India 40 medals. A clear indicator that even parents with unsteady income do tend to support children’s sporting dreams – if they get a leg-up.
Know more about our Asiad athletes
* Of the 244 athletes, or their families, who shared the annual household income with The Indian Express on the condition that they not be named, almost 20 per cent, 50 in total, came from families who earned less than Rs 50,000 a year when they started playing. The numbers give hope to many that if there is free and easy access to sporting facilities, sporting talent will get spotted and groomed.
* The count of children of parent/parents with a stable income and permanent government jobs was just 33. Clearly, for the service class, sports still isn’t a career option.
* Most medals, 62, came from families with agricultural income, reflecting their rural origins. Just over a dozen have Army backgrounds and 44 medals came from those whose families had their own businesses.
* 48 women athletes who got medals at the 2023 Asian Games were introduced to their sport at an academy. The corresponding number for men is 50.
* A majority of these athletes were introduced to their sport under expert tutelage. That they are from Rural and Tier 3 cities shows that basic sporting facilities and systematic coaching experts have tapped into the interiors. Significant here is the fact that most of the early scouting and talent spotting beyond the cities was done enterprising coaches at rudimentary private academies.
* It might still be a struggle but most athletes have balanced their sporting and education careers, too. Of the 232 athletes aged 20 and above, 135 were college graduates while 21 had completed their post-graduation. Ironically, parents of at least 55 of these graduate-athletes did not study beyond Class XII.
 
Understanding these demographics is essential as the country pitches to host the Olympics in 2036. While the multi-billion dollar Indian Premier League (IPL) turns men with modest means into millionaires overnight, the state and Central governments are the prime movers in other sports. There’s a concerted push to build new infrastructure and purse strings have been loosened to fund elite-level training.
There are concerns too – key is the absence of a safety net.
Most athletes said they had not given their post-playing career a thought. Nearly one-fourth of the medalls of employable age had no jobs. PSUs and other government-run agencies continue to remain the biggest employers, with only 13 athletes finding a job with private firms.
Speaking to The Indian Express in an Idea Exchange last October, Olympic gold medall Abhinav Bindra had highlighted the need to design a system wherein athletes are encouraged to pursue dual careers, noting that an increase in participation numbers in sports will also lead to a simultaneous increase in dropouts.
“What we really need to focus on is the aspect of dual career in sport. If you look at all the Western countries, the developed sports nations have very few athletes who just play sport all day… We have to slowly start to go in this direction. Basic education for athletes is very important,” Bindra had said.
Data shows that eight out of the 16 players each in the men and women’s cricket teams paused their pursuit of an educational degree after Class 10 or 12. Cricket isn’t the only sport with a high number of school dropouts. Kabaddi and chess, where the young Indian brigade is taking the world a storm, are other two sports in which athletes had to halt their academic journey after Class 10 or 12.