 Hello and welcome to this roundup of the 2018 Asian Games on NewsClick.in. I'm Siddharth Ani and I'm joined by Leslie Xavier and Vehbha Vraganandan, expert team of sports panellists. Hi Siddharth. It's been, I'm sure all of you or many of you have been following these Asian Games intently. We've seen a fairly high level of competition, very engaging some of the events have been. So what we're going to do today is essentially talk about India's performance at the Asian Games, contextualize it with where some of these leading Indian athletes, men and women stand in the global scenario and examine whether their performances have actually been world class or whether we are still only at the level where we are competing on the continental level. So to start off with let's get straight to the meat of it. The number one prospect for India perhaps ever as far as athletics is concerned, Neera Chopra. Yeah, there's no doubt about that actually Neeraj is the star, Neeraj is the star of these Asian Games is the talk of the town in a way because looking ahead is a lot of prospects for this youngster because the way he has developed in the last two years and the way he is looking ahead in the next two years where he wants to be, it's amazing. So he touched 88 meters at the Asian Games and that distance would have earned him a bronze medal in the last Olympics. That says it. Can I just say that like watching Neeraj Chopra compete in the Javerin, I finally for once realize what it must feel like to be a China, like a Chinese athletics fan because our boy was much better than the competition and so you could just sit back, relax, watch him do his bit and also take joy in how low everyone was compared to us. So that was like really lovely to see him do that and like Leslie saying it was world class any of his five legitimate throws four of them would have won gold at the Asian level. One of them would have won bronze at the Olympics and the only men to have been bigger than this this year are the two German boys who won gold and silver the European Championships. In right now he's the third best in the world. So Neeraj has been training under German coach himself. How much do you guys think that coach has influenced his development? That's one question. The second question is for because we don't get the chance to watch a lot of athletics day in, day out. We only get to watch athletics when there are these major events happening right. So people expect that Pishle Saal, He's a 87 cut through key. It's got best through 87 meters guy. So it's all Nobby on a sheet. But he's a young boy. These are going to be So what is the sort of incremental gradual development process that he should go through so that he like the Chinese athletes that you're mentioning peaks at the right time for world championships for the Tokyo Olympic Games? I think in the growing scene of things and we can actually look back at what what he said after winning the medal. And he's a very level headed kid at 20. He has that maturity to understand very very what he has to do to reach there. And obviously he's guided well by the German coach who we own who is the only person who has touched 100 meters as a Javelin though history in history. So the coach comes with a great pedigree throwing pedigree. And of course knowledge as well. So he's been imparting that. So what Neeraj said was that is focus in the future in the coming months would be to compete at the world level diamond league and World Championship and whatever high level competitions that come up. But at the same time refinement technique. He was upset. Imagine that he was upset a little bit though at the final in the Asian Games because he thought that it's going a little higher than it actually should be the angle. So that means you could have easily gone further. So it's not about incremental distance as such in the coming two seasons till Tokyo. I would say that it's about refining is technique in such a way that 88 would be a base distance from where you can really launch and probably touch 90 90 consistently. The way he's touching 85 plus right now. So sticking to the subject of athletics but moving on a little bit like making it a little bit wider. There have been several good performances and and like several more medals than the previous edition of the Asian Games in 2014. But is Indian athletics improving? I mean are our standards getting higher? And if not why? It's actually a very tricky question because when on the general sense we are winning medals. So it's analyzing the performances of the medals for instance. We look at gold medal of Arpinder Singh in the triple jump. It's way below par when you look. I mean he may not even qualify for the Olympics forget. So that gold medal I mean obviously we can celebrate it's an achievement to be the continental champion but will it translate to something bigger on a global stage or on a at the Olympics? For instance it's it's it's it's not there. So so when you look at where Indian athletics is now or where is it heading? It's it's it's not exactly a very great picture as such. It's not it's not moved ahead by by the margin that it should be to be a challenge or to be a name of reckoning on the global stage. But this could also be true for at a certain level for Asian athletics as a whole also in certain events definitely. Like Tejinder Palsing through an Asian Games record in the short part to win gold. But he would have not even been in the top five in the last Olympics. Standards in Asia is not. Not perhaps right. Except Neeraj Neeraj being the standout star in this thing. He madas for instance we are celebrating a world championship victory junior world championship but timing there was I mean when you look at the global standard at the senior level it's it's it's two seconds off. And at the Asian championship as well the the Bahrainian runner Nasser who won gold beating her she is world class she is the world's best this season and she didn't touch her best at the Asian level probably she felt that she is not pushed enough by the competitors and she won by quite by a one second margin almost a one second margin with him and so him a talent everything not withstanding she has a long way to go that way to bring that point in because she's only been running for a very short period I mean and she's faster than her compatriots by a couple of seconds that gap between her and the second fastest Indian is much more than what the gap between her and the fastest Bahrainian or whatever other runner right. So there is definitely potential there for her to be the fastest Indian woman in both the 200 and the 400 for some time to come. 200 I think she falls started but for the 400 definitely she's way ahead of anyone else I mean if you've seen that Federation Cup video of her winning the 400 he's hilarious how what the margin of victory was in the Indian scenario. I must also use this opportunity to like plug Leslie's story on him others where you were talking about how how how recently she started training and while we are really it's a great thing that in two three years of training she has gotten here it's I remember reading his story and feeling like okay that's true but what if we hadn't found her. It's shameful to say that she's just gotten three years of development here started three years back because that's not how we make champions in a country in a setup and he masked case the 200 meter false start that he mentioned it's because she doesn't have the experience and she said after the race that she was under pressure and she fell start so speaking of nurturing champions let's talk about a subject very close to Leslie's heart and mind Bajrang and his I mean it was for me one of the highlights of the Asian Games for sure tell us a little bit about firstly the mental aspects of a wrestling bout how how sort of how you pace yourself how you counter whatever the opponents thought process may or may not be and speak specifically about his final against the Japanese wrestler whose name I have forgotten I'm Takatani Takatani again there is a history because Takatani's elder brother beat Sushil in London Olympics final anyways and Sushil is important here because I think we saw probably the last of Sushil in this in the Asian Games and Bajrang exciting I feel he has announced himself as a genuine prospect for the upcoming next Olympics he has developed well in the last two years because in the I mean compared to his performance in say for instance the silver medal winning performance at the last Asian Games and this gold medal winning performance beyond that increment of the medal it's how he fought in the bouts the assertive nature in which he got into it and there was no nothing reactionary about it he knew his game plan what is it and he just asserted himself on all the opponents including the Japanese wrestler in the final just that the Japanese wrestler exposed one of his weaknesses which is his opening for a leg single leg takedowns he is prone to otherwise I think he has developed his strength by quite a margins and that helps him to dominate opponents apply his techniques on the mat and I think Bajrang's bout was pretty straightforward he knew his game plan his strengths what is his techniques that he's going to apply and he just went and applied it and at the Asian level in this year's competition no one was there to challenge him no one was there to force him to rethink the strategies which is till the final till the final and finally he showed beautifully that he is not again a wrestler who would bow down or who would be affected if things are not going down his way the Japanese wrestler kept attacking his leg scoring points but then in the second half he just changed it and he changed his stance a little bit which I brought it back a little almost close to parallel and then after that he controlled the bout in a way but yeah there is a weakness in Bajrang which needs to be rectified by the coaches or else we would be throwing away because at the world level it's a different ball game all together if 12 rest 16 wrestlers are there at the Olympic field 16 are equally capable of winning a medal so it's going to be tight there but I think it's is up there so speaking of coaches Kushti as a sport in India has tradition a lot of tradition a lot of sort of old values attached to it it's a rural sport that's played across a large part of India and coaches have inevitably been like gurus and there's been a tradition of mostly Indian coaches unlike several other sports where you bring in foreign experts etc etc in the case of some of these wrestlers now like Bajrang for example from his technique you can perhaps gather that he's picked up some Iranian influences do you think that Indian wrestling the fraternity at large is more willing now to bring in aspects of other wrestling cultures rather than stick to the our own traditional philosophies methods techniques it's after Sushil Sushil is that 2008 the Olympic medal after that I mean before that also there were foreign coaches working with India if I remember it right one Georgian Hurlow was there and then after that Vladimir Machiavelli was with Sushi the coach during Sushil's time for a long period in fact eight years almost and Sushil benefited definitely from from those foreign inputs because the entire approach towards the bout in modern wrestling is completely different from whatever traditional coaches prescribe because our traditional coaches they have grown up in the Takara setup where I mean you can't blame them either because to perform well in a dungal makes sense economically for them because that helps them to fund that's helped them to fund their training their diet even even run their households and so Bajrang's for instance Bajrang as me is the second generation after next generation after Sushil and Yogeshwar so he has benefited definitely from Yogeshwar's influence in his in his in his bouts because you can see certain techniques or certain ways that he moves to take down people or the way he transitions from one technique to another all these were Yogeshwar's hallmark and I'm sure I mean and the way wrestling works if you have a mentor you blindly believe that mentor and I'm sure Bajrang goes blindly to what Yogeshwar says so in this case I am sure Yogeshwar would have loved the Iranian the new Iranian foreign coaches influence because if you notice the rest of all the wrestlers the coach who was sitting on the chair was was Indian and in in Bajrang's bout it was the Iranian the foreign coach who was sitting there so that that tells it that image itself tells it and obviously it showed in the bout also like for instance the the ground techniques that he applied the irani we call it the irani which is this is a lock Sushil used to apply that and Bajrang that's that Bajrang was going for it he never used to earlier very quickly yeah medal prospect for Tokyo 2020 vinesh and Bajrang yeah both you think though for good sister and Bajrang vinesh has shaped up well and she has she has she would have won a medal in Rio if it was not there was really injury yeah okay so we'll move on to the next subject and it's it's good for a change I mean there are multiple sports in which we have genuine world-class talent emerging right so that is definitely like a huge shift right shift and of course we can still complain about it and say that okay this is there's no system in place so there's no systematic way in which these people there's no system that these guys come through they just it just so happens that among the pool that is picked up there are some talents that are world-class but badminton is one sport where the supply chain is thriving right men women doubles singles mixed doubles I mean any and at the Asian Games now it's taken us a long time to India a long time to win a medal at the Asian Games level it's happened now in good measure what do you guys make of the particularly the women's performance Sindhu Saina of course I mean now I now it's come to a point where I feel like there's a time I think in the 80s when Ivan Landel had lost a series of finals and I think everyone was just everyone rivals people who didn't like him compatriots or not everyone just wanted him to win one and now I feel like that's happening across the world with Sindhu she's lost five in a row she's lost eight finals in the last two years and I mean now we just I it's great she's won a silver it's a big thing we've not won medals at badminton now we win them so regularly that we want to want to win gold so that's a great aspirational shift and yeah I mean it shows how much the sport has grown the men were really a bit disappointing underwhelming not disappointing perhaps underwhelming this time but that's across the board in the at the Asian Games the men who were doing well on the tour circuit have not done well at the Asian Games so maybe there is something larger to be read there but in the women yeah I mean two medals who would have thought this is I mean badminton development has happened in the last 10 years Gopichans academy Saina coming up then Sindhu following suit and then the men coming up in the game but I always felt that we don't manage our athletes really well I mean Asian Games victory great but when you look at Olympics for instance last Olympics Saina's injury I thought I thought it's it's because the schedules are not being planned if you look at say for instance the Chinese battalion that come for the Olympics every four years they just fade off after that a little and then they just start building towards the games for the fair enough I'm just to play devil's advocate I don't know if we can necessarily compare India situation to China situation for many reasons one of them being perhaps that the state support that those athletes receive that allow them to come to the Olympics and then disappear and then come back or or whatever transition from one games to the other we don't have that kind of luxury leeway whatever you might call it no but it also becomes a bit of a problem like see also I think now badminton has become has come to a level where it's you have to be on tour you have to be playing through the year it's almost like tennis there's a full year long calendar you've got to participate in as many events as possible Saina's ranking for example was lower than what she would have normally expected it to be at the Asian Games because of which she met Taisu Ying in the semis if she was on the other side of the draw if she was a little higher then she could have gotten Yamaguchi or Okuhara and she could have gotten through Okuhara had skipped a lot of events in the lead up to the Asian Games her ranking has dropped even more she faced Taisu Ying in the quarters didn't even make a medal like so you know this is it's a really dicey game to play where you have such confidence in your own ability that it doesn't matter which side of the draw you're on who you face when you're going to be willing to get yourself a medal or you at least get yourself to a position where it's just that much and losing five finals and going into a major event tournament final against the same opponent who we are never won that gives you an historic baggage also so I'm just I mean it's see it's again plugging one of my pieces we will eventually plug one of our pieces also this this from the winning the ticket will run throughout like one after the other this from the world championship final wins and lost and I had actually said that we are dreaming of a Sainas in the final even and why not in Tokyo because the quality is there and we have two top class badminton players in the world and they ranked right up there who can actually win win medals for you on any stage it's it's about translating that to gold now which is a great sign but what I feel is that we should pace their schedule I mean Gopichan's next job would be actually to nurture them in such a way that they are not exposed to baggages so they are not exposed to injuries things like that because managing champions is takes a different approach so that's next two years would would would mean that and that requires a change no so the other thing that for me is really exciting about badminton as a sport is that globally on television or in terms of drawing audiences to the stadium as well women's badminton is the driver unlike probably any other sport in the world but that's because right now the competition at the top of women badminton is so stable and also there's such recognizable figures when Lin Nan and Lichong Wei were at their pomp they were the drivers so and just generally in terms of when we talk about like equal pay for equal work which I we are now in 2018 and it's ridiculous that this is still an issue but but it is an issue and badminton is putting forward the I think the strongest case for equal pay for men and women not just that I mean sport at least I think if I'm not mistaken the women final at the Asian Games was held after the men's finals so that was the primary event it was the prime event number one and number three yeah exactly so that was yeah although I must also say like this is like a nice thing that happened which is I mean I'm sure when we were growing up Indonesia was the badminton stronghold so it was really nice to see Jonathan Christie win gold for Indonesia in Indonesia in badminton and that stadium was rocking I was just the only event also that has seen like a lot of I mean it's been unfortunate in terms of what we've seen at the stadiums in terms of spectator turnout not too many people have kind of come out to watch which is really unfortunate but badminton was it's a religion in Indonesia it's actually what hockey was to India moving on then do I don't know other disciplines anything else one thing that stood out for me going back to athletics for a second and since we were talking about men and women is the Manjeet and Jinsen Johnson in the 800 and 1500 I mean really good strong performances maybe not world class but at least at the Asian level it's exciting to watch these races right I mean the 800 and the 1500 are the most exciting races to watch because they're not just about speed they're not just about mindless blast towards the finish line they're not grueling lactic acid building brain numbing timed long distances it's a race it's its strategy tactics years of training mental strength so many things come into these two races and which is why like seeing manjeet win was he's a veteran of the sport he has from what I understand he has not won much through his career and not many gave him a hope of winning a goal in the 1800 either yeah I mean the commentators didn't even know his existence exactly he reached the finish line so it was that works for him probably the racers going under the leader yeah yeah yeah so that worked for him because he got into the third or fourth lane and he just went went ahead and even I think Jinsen was very surprised and probably it would be an I mean interesting to see these two develop because I think they can push each other and it would be a nice rivalry and it can see them improve I mean not towards probably an Olympic gold but or a big medal but you know but even to see an Indian in the finals at at the 400 meters in Tokyo will be a massive thing yeah it will be great so because we are not I mean let's face it a nation known for middle distance running India the new stronghold of middle distance running in Asia sounds sounds or like middle class middle distance so from all these positives there is I mean although both the Kabaddi teams came back with medals not gold for the first time and it's a subject that we cannot ignore uh another Leslie Xavier masterpiece detailing it's a long piece but but I would if anyone has an interest in Kabaddi it's a good piece to read because it plays out a little bit like the classic Indian soap opera it's like a family drama there's power politics there's court cases there's money changing hands there's selection drama going on you know there's a pro kabaddi league people and there's the fact that perhaps other countries that are interested in playing this sport are catching up with where India but that's the thing also like I mean I must say obviously like it's really sad for Indian Kabaddi but maybe it's really good for the sport also like a wake up call yeah and it's really good for the sport in the sense that Iran also claims that Kabaddi is their sport I mean years back I think two years back when Atrachali the captain of the Iran men's team when he was in India for the pro kabaddi league everyone would go up to him and he would say that he comes from the village that invented kabaddi and this is obviously up for debate but who are we to deny that also so it's really it was really lovely to see them as an Indian fan was really depressing but when you saw the highlight it was also lovely to see the way that they celebrated the emotion that they had when they were celebrating the victory against India it meant a lot to them for sure huge beating I mean beating a team that has never really been beaten before and so yeah I mean that way it's definitely good for the game but as far as the Indian kabaddi is concerned there is a lot of change that needs to happen because and it's nothing related to pro kabaddi league when when you say money came in and then corruption happened and all that but this thing was happening apparently through the last 20 years or so and things were taken for granted so much that they just ignored the possibilities that they might lose yeah they might lose yeah it's like show up and take the gold and come back home that sort of variety right so the so this Asian games would be would be a landmark even for Indian kabaddi not because of the losses as such but because it it showed an aspect that that we cannot ignore the world anymore game is moving ahead game is moving ahead and nations are catching up and it's not like they are better than India or they are equal to India it's not India still has that advantage the base and all massive player pools but you better get things right at home otherwise in some time you won't even win a medal I mean it reminds me of another great Leslie's words Leslie Claudius's words when he spoke about how hockey had I mean what happened to hockey over the years how India declined and where he had said that they started the federation the government everyone started thinking that they were invincible and they could do anything whereas constantly the score lines were getting tighter the performances were getting closer but nobody paid attention to that and then it so so you saw a long period of decline for hockey so that could I mean this could have they could have seen this coming at the world cup two years back when at half time India went in the final of the world cup they were down to Iran and funnily enough the hero of that final the guy who won us was Ajay Thakur the captain of this team and he came out of nowhere won us the game single-handedly in the second half of the world cup final they should have seen the warning signs there when one man is going to win you a game well I suppose the other teams did see the warning sign and they nullified the threat that they took care of it and the margin of loss was not they were not close games yeah I mean you I would say that by the end of it that there was a bit of a sheen added like it was like a one tilt in 90 minutes and then they scored in the counter attack but sure but yeah I mean it was either way a loss is a loss is a loss and and for those of you who haven't been following the cupboard the scenario what's going to happen now is going to be even more interesting because the medals at the asian games have already been awarded but both the men and the women's team will come back and they'll face two other teams selected by an impartial court the delhi high court has mandated this game must happen so the teams that were selected for the asian games will have to come and prove that they are essentially deserving of their selection they are the best team that could have gone for the asian games so so keep an eye out for that that that should lead to some interesting developments in the sport are they going to broadcast in the few they might because they want everyone to watch it so of course I mean a lot to talk about a lot more to talk about anything you guys want to add before we wrap up no the key is that it falls directly in between two olympic games so but but unfortunately we tend to Indians we as Indians tend to focus on peaking for the asian games and not the not the olympics that cycle needs to be broken and I think there are some athletes who perceive themselves and who are world-class they are broken out of that that mold but but for as a nation for us to make a bigger impact I mean in relation to the population strength that we have at the olympic games we need to we need to get all the the possible sports prosperity sports that the medal prosperity sports to focus channelize the energies focus the athletes into into something bigger and not not just promotion from an asian games or a conval games medal yeah I mean I don't know whenever multi sports events and I feel like a huge void has opened up into my life which I have to suddenly fill with well whatever your vice is don't worry we'll find plenty of sport to fill both the above's void and and everyone else's there's a lot going on so stay tuned and join us again for our next sports chat we shall come at you very very shortly thanks for watching