Commonwealth Games

The Commonwealth Games are an international multi-sport event involving athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930, and has taken place every four years since then. The Commonwealth Games were known as the British Empire Games from 1930 to 1950, the British Empire and Commonwealth Games from 1954 to 1966, and British Commonwealth Games from 1970 to 1974. 

It is the world's first multi-sport event which inducted equal number of women’s and men’s medal events and was implemented recently in the 2018 Commonwealth Games   Although there are currently 53 members of the Commonwealth of Nations, 71 teams currently participate in the Commonwealth Games, as a number of dependent territories compete under their own flags. The four Home Nations of the United Kingdom—England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland—also send separate teams. The most recent Commonwealth Games were held at Gold Coast from 4 to 15 April 2018. The next Commonwealth Games are to be held in Birmingham from 27 July to 7 August 2022.

India competed at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, Australia from 4 to 15 April 2018. It was India's 18th appearance at the Commonwealth Games. With 26 Gold medals and a total of 66 medals, India finished 3rd for the tournament. It was India's best position since the 2010 Commonwealth Games. India was the best nation in 5 disciplines, weightlifting, shooting, wrestling, badminton and table tennis, and the second best nation in boxing. Below are some of the highlights of India’s performance :

• Going for Gold- high point of India’s performance at the Games has been the high number of golds. While India bettered its overall performance at Glasgow by two medals, its gold tally improved by 11. That’s a massive 60 per cent.
• Women leading the show- Traditionally men have dominated sports in India. Emergence of few star female players in the last few years has signaled a major shift in this sphere. GC 2018 saw some stupendous performance by female athletes: 50 per cent of all golds won by India were brought in by women players. Their medal victories were also quite diversified indicating emergence of great female athletes across categories
• Majority of India’s medals still come from few sports- Eight of every 10 medals won by India at Gold Coast were won in the games Indian sportspersons have historically excelled at. A quarter of all medals came from shooting. The success rate of the Indian contingent for shooting was quite impressive too with 16 medals coming from India’s 27 entries in the sport. That’s a success rate of almost 60 percent

Here is plenty to cheer about India’s CWG performance. But at the risk of being a spoilsport, one needs to ask if this presages a medal harvest in the next Olympics. Unfortunately not. This is not just due to the fact that top sporting nations such as the US, China and Russia, are not part of CWG. After all, England and Australia, who participate in CWG, have traditionally been strong sporting nations with England placing second in the medal table in the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. 

India’s performance in the just-concluded CWG as a possible predictor for the Olympics needs to be seen in context of the disciplines where it excelled. In the 2018 CWG India won more than half its 66 medals in three sports: shooting, wrestling and weightlifting. In these three disciplines, the world’s best were absent from CWG. In shooting, for instance, where India won 16 medals in the 2018 CWG, the top three nations in the Rio Olympics were Italy, Germany and China. In wrestling, where India won 12 medals in the 2018 CWG, the top nations in the Rio Games were Russia, Japan, Cuba and the US. 

Again in weightlifting, where India won nine medals in the 2018 CWG, the top three nations in Rio were China, Iran and Thailand. The same could be said for boxing and table tennis, where India won nine and eight medals respectively. It is quite apparent that in all the sports where India won a bagful of medals, it was hardly competing with the best. Medal winners, such as Mary Kom, who have tasted success at the highest levels, acknowledged this.

This, however, does not mean that India’s performance in CWG should be dismissed out of hand. That India can best far richer, albeit smaller nations, such as Canada and New Zealand was heartening. There is a proven correlation between a country’s GDP, per capita income and sports excellence and it is encouraging that India has broken out to some extent of its poverty trap. The performance in sports such as table tennis, where India’s ManikaBatra beat an Olympic medalist, is comforting too as was the regional diversity. Though Haryana contributed the most medals, there were several other states that made it to the medal table. 

For India to do better in the Olympics and even Asian Games, it needs to focus on some core disciplines such as badminton, where it is already a world power, shooting and wrestling. And below the exalted levels of international meets, more kids need access to sporting facilities so that India’s effective participating population in sports increases.

Gandhar Dharashivkar