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Business News/ Companies / People/  Federations create an atmosphere of fear: Viren Rasquinha
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Federations create an atmosphere of fear: Viren Rasquinha

Former hockey captain Viren Rasquinha on managing Olympic athletes and the challenges of working through red tape

Viren Rasquinha says that providing medical help to injured athletes is one of OGQ’s most pressing priorities. Photo: Priyanka Parashar/MintPremium
Viren Rasquinha says that providing medical help to injured athletes is one of OGQ’s most pressing priorities. Photo: Priyanka Parashar/Mint

New Delhi: In 2007, former billiards world champion Geet Sethi and former All-England badminton champion Prakash Padukone joined hands to start a not-for-profit called Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ) to provide specialized help and funding to India’s Olympic sportspersons. Both Sethi and Padukone had first-hand experience of the lack of quality training and support for sportspersons. They knew just what gaps they needed to plug to try and improve India’s dismal record at the Olympics. In 2009, they appointed India’s former hockey captain Viren Rasquinha as CEO. In 2012, India recorded its best-ever haul at the Olympics—six medals—four of which were won by sportspersons affiliated to OGQ. These included the little-known shooter Vijay Kumar (silver, 25m Pistol); Gagan Narang (bronze, 10m Air Rifle), OGQ’s first signing back in 2007; badminton star Saina Nehwal (bronze, women’s singles); and former boxing world champion Mary Kom (bronze, flyweight).

Now with 57 sportspersons to manage, Rasquinha talks about the critical challenges in making Indian athletes competitive at the highest levels despite a broken sports system, and their hopes from the forthcoming Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea, from 19 September to 4 October. Edited excerpts:

Twenty athletes backed by OGQ went to the Commonwealth Games (CWG) and brought back 16 medals. Are you happy with that performance?

I am never happy. We want all 20 to win, and we want them to better their performances. If you analyse the 17 shooters in the Indian team who won medals at the CWG, and look at their average scores this year, only one of them would have had the scores to make it to the finals of an Olympics—Jitu Rai (10m and 25m Pistol). Heena Sidhu (10m Pistol) also has scores to make it to the final, but she did not win a medal at the CWG. Our lookout is to see whose performance can match the Olympic level. We have 32 of our athletes going to the Asian Games, and we expect 15-16 medals here as well, but the competition gets much tougher in some of our strongest disciplines here. To give you an example from shooting again, the 10m Air Pistol final line-up at the World Championships has just been decided, and seven out of eight shooters are Asian!

What are the biggest challenges in supporting athletes?

There are so many. But managing injuries and fitness is possibly the most critical for us. None of the federations provide proper physiotherapists to their athletes. Ask any athlete about it, and see what they have to say about the official physios. We have to station our physios permanently at the training centres, and they end up handling all the players on a team, whether or not those players are with OGQ. We have a physio permanently placed with the boxing team for example, and all the boxers use his services and no one goes to the federation-appointed one.

Injury management is very poor. The athletes are not provided the right doctors—as elite athletes, they need cutting edge medical care, and they get nothing close to that. This May, Rahi (Sarnobat, 25m Pistol) had a fall and injured herself. She could not even lift her hand, forget shooting. We took her to Mumbai, consulted Dr Sudhir Warrier, who operated on Sachin Tendulkar’s hand, and put her through a full rehab programme including mental training. She went to the CWG and won a gold. (Sarnobat is on the Asian Games team).

Why is there so little help from the sports federations?

Forget help, in national sports federations an atmosphere of fear is created. Athletes are scared to tell the federation about any problems or injuries, or anything that they need. They know that their problems will only get worse if they do that. The self-respect and confidence of the athletes is undermined by the federations. There is no trust, no respect, and then there is the bureaucracy. If an athlete has to go abroad for a 10-day training stint through the federation, they will have to give up a month of their time to just run around trying to get sanctions. You have to create an atmosphere of excellence, with open communications, with respect for the athlete and his or her needs—you have to be friend to the athlete—they are operating at a very high level, and they need all the help and confidence you can give them.

You faced this administrative apathy yourself as a player and a captain of the Indian hockey team?

My dream as a player was to win an Olympic gold medal. I was very frustrated. For eight years that I played in the national team no one ever asked me “what can we do to make you better?" “What help do you need?" “Where can we improve?" I always thought that if I could get a chance to help athletes, I will do it, and I am really happy that I got that chance.

The government does certain things that we can’t do—they manage a massive national set-up, the big picture. But there are a few thousand little things that have to be handled at the elite level, for which a sharp, specialized, focused team is required—people who can act quickly and with expertise. This the government does not have. So we need each other.

What happens when a federation collapses—like the way the Indian Boxing Federation has; banned for now more than two years…

We don’t do anything. With boxing, it’s all doors closed. It’s not like shooting that I can take a shooter out of the national set- up and send her abroad for training, or send them to Germany to test their guns and ammunition. We could get Mary Kom individual training because of the way she is, and her stature, so she could get out of the national camp. Otherwise, we can’t do anything. It is extremely frustrating, but all these issues—the way a federation operates, rigged elections, bans—these are not in our control, so we don’t think of them. We can help with the fitness of the boxers, so come 2016, our aim is that Devendro (Singh, 2014 CWG silver) and Sarita (Devi, 2014 CWG silver) will be the fittest boxers at the Olympics.

Is it easier to raise funds now that sports has been included under CSR as per the new Companies Act in 2013?

There is a lot of potential in that and we are targeting companies. The CSR route is tough since the priorities for most companies are health, education, women’s welfare, or sanitation. Though we are raising more and more funds every year. We are in the process of getting a US-based tax-exemption certificate because we have found that there are plenty of very passionate NRIs who want to invest in Indian Olympic sports. We are also doing fund-raising dinners across the country, in both big cities and smaller ones. People now get excited that Saina Nehwal, Sushil Kumar, or Mary Kom will come to dinner! We raised 1 crore from our first one in Pune.

What kind of funds do you need?

We are looking at around 6 crore per annum. In 2008, when we started, we had just one athlete, Gagan Narang. Now we have 57—43 seniors and 14 juniors. We sent Ayonika Paul (10m Air Rifle, silver at the 2014 CWG) for a 10-day training stint to Germany right after the CWG, and it cost us 4 lakh.

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Published: 12 Sep 2014, 10:38 PM IST
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