The role of a coach in India is often undermined when it comes to analysing the extent of success that an athlete achieves. It was not until recently that Pullela Gopichand was lauded for creating back to back Olympic medallists in Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu for the country. A former All England winner in his own right, he mortgaged his own house to setup an academy in Hyderabad, which would go onto become the mecca of badminton in India. For someone as high profile as Gopichand to undergo financial and infrastructural issues in an attempt to create consistent champions is indicative of the state of non-cricket sports coaching in the country. A step down to the ‘lesser popular’ sports highlights the extent of the discipline’s ignorance as an essential entity for Olympic success.
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How Para-athletics is surviving and thriving in India against all odds
India’s Paralympic contingent consists of just 19 sportspersons, but their chances of outdoing the 120 member Olympic squad’s medal count is higher. Out of 19, 12 members are part of the Athletics squad, with 81 % of them being ranked in the world top eight. In fact, the T-42 world High Jump category holds a unique feat for India. For the first time in history, three Indians head into an official multi-sport tournament occupying the top three spots in the world rankings. Quietly doing their job with little to no recognition, Mariyappan Thangavelu, Varun Singh Bhati and Sharad Kumar have achieved this unprecedented feat.
With the Paralympic Council of India (PCI) suspended two and a half years ago, I wondered to myself who is creating these champions? How do we have a Para- Athletics contingent fighting for gold against the likes of USA and Jamaica, when they don’t even have funding from an association? A search led me to the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Delhi. On the fringes of the stadium’s geographical proximity, a revolution is brewing.
The morning sun has barely shown itself, but I can see a diminutive figure already out on track without a soul in sight. He sits on a small makeshift stool near the stadium’s practice ground and takes out a small black notebook. Upon asking what the notebook is for, he says “Ankur is late. This is the second time in six months, there is no excuse for that. Either you live this dream or you don’t. He will have to compensate with extra training for this.” Satyapal Singh might not be a synonymous name in India, but his achievements make him the most successful coach India has ever produced.
With 54 international medals across 15 athletes in competitive international multi-sport events (World, Asian Championship, Asian, Commonwealth and Paralympic Games), how has India’s most successful coach slipped under the public radar? He didn’t, in 2012, Satyapal became India’s youngest ever Dronacharya Awardee for his contribution to Para-Athletics in India.
Despite having two qualifiers in the Para-athletics, middle distance running events, Ankur Dhama will be Satyapal’s only athlete at Rio. The Uttar-Pradesh runner is also creating history before he even steps a foot in Rio. He is India’s first ever fully blind athlete to participate in a Paralympic edition. One of the first Indian athletes to qualify for the Paralympics, the 28-year old is the national 800m, 1500m and 5000m record holder.
Satyapal exclusively told Sportskeeda, “For any athlete to achieve being the best in a sport, discipline is key, for Para-athletes the ones who are motivated, their goal is not a medal or any distinction, their goal is to show the world that they are as normal as anyone else. Once you have that motivation, it’s just his athletic abilities you have to work on. I have been doing this for over 10 years now and everyday my motivation gets stronger, because I can see that the will is taking them a second faster or a yard closer to success.”
Ankur has already tasted success at the 2014 Asian Para Games winning a silver medal and also won three medals (two bronze, one silver) at the recently concluded Asia-Oceanic Games. This feat made him the year’s most successful para-athlete. For helping athletes such as Ankur on a consistent basis, Satyapal Singh has never received a single penny. He said, “Money, that’s not something I have ever seen since I joined Para-athletics. However, I won’t complain ever because that’s not why I started. But if you can get para-athletes to consistently medal at the Paralympics, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games, there must be some formula that works. I have a day job with Acharya College, Delhi University. That money that I get I put into my athletes training so that they can go represent India.”
Why the country’s finest coach is not going to Rio
His salary of Rs 40,000, is primarily spent in buying shoes and supplements for his athletes. The recent Paralympic qualifier in Dubai was funded by Satpal who paid Rs 2 lakhs from his own savings for Ankur. The Sports Authority of India (SAI) had denied to give funds to Ankur, despite showing exemplary results in 2016. Satyapal added, “The authorities don’t understand, the level I get athletes in they are not able to commute in public transport. For them to reach the stadium itself is a task, so taking them from non-participation to the Paralympics is a painstakingly long process. If anything the funds should be more, but there is nothing
On being asked how much of his savings he sacrificed to train such athletes, he said, “I don’t like quantifying this, this is my passion and nobody can understand your passion but yourself. However, if you ask me and I have to put a number, all my savings. I have given all the money I had left to my athlete, for his expenses in Rio. So Ankur has to medal or I’m broke *laughs*.”
Over 50 plus international multi-sport event medals won, not a single penny earned
It’s been a year of doubles success for Satyapal, another one of his students Sandeep Singh won the Arjuna Award, a seventh one for an athlete trained by him. A further seven national category victories saw that tally rise to 177. Despite all that happened in 2016 and a decade of ignorance, why does India’s most successful international coach need to pay for his ticket to Rio? The answer is simple, the Sports Authority of India (SAI) isn’t even aware of the existence of such a coach. On asking a senior SAI official about the India’s most successful coach narrative, they were monosyllabic. He said, “Yes, we know he is a good para-sports coach! But, I can’t actually tell you why he is going you can ask someone else as I don’t really know much about what and where he coaches. But we know he has won medals, but I cannot tell you why exactly he is not being funded.”
“Ankur has already left for it, and the ad-hoc committee members have gone as officials, even if I gather the funds, I don’t have the accreditation so I can’t even enter the facilities. The coach is slot is open, still they won’t be giving me accreditation because they know I will observe the what they do. They have no idea about para-sports and are only going to take a vacation, I might be India’s most successful coach but in front of a vacation I’m nothing,” he added.
According to statistics produced by the US Athletics association, the country spent an average of $ 1 million on each 2012 London Paralympic medallist. In India, since 2014, the Para-athletics fraternity has received Rs 0 in athlete growth and funding. Satpal said, “Even NGO’s are hardly any, yes companies such as Gosports and Anglian help with supplements and money at times that hardly goes anywhere. It is just a fundamental issues with Para-sports, no one including the people in it take it seriously whereas in other nations, it’s as serious as able-bodied sports. More people know Ankur Dhama in countries like Australia and USA then people know in India. So it’s a fundamental thinking that has to change with people of India and the administrators governing the sport.”
Lack of accessibility for differently-abled root cause for ignorance of para-sports
Till date, Satpal Singh has invested Rs 23 lakhs, including several bank loans and monetary help from friends and family. He added, “These Rs 23 lakhs have won almost 50 international medals, so compare this to the US statistic, and despite the lack of funds we compete with the best, and don’t give up. I thought after I win my Dronacharya and my athletes win Arjuna government will take notice. But, it seemed almost as a token with no added benefits of growth. But, me and my athletes want Paralympic gold and we won’t stop until I get it.
A normal day for Satypal begins at 4 am, he reaches the ground an hour before his athletes to create everyone’s specific daily training routines. Training lasts for four hours, before he is off for his day job as Physical Education teacher in college. The clock strikes 5 am and he is off to the fringes of the Nehru stadium for training again. Since the sport is not deemed ‘important enough’ by SAI, the only practice area they get is a worn out field in the outskirts of the Stadium’s premises, with no changing area or access to dressing rooms. He said, “Ankur can run for without seeing what is in front of him, you think no dressing room will put him down. As long as we have got a track, we have the will to win. Yes, but things would get much easier if we did.”
The day ends at 12 am, after he has analysed the daily training and diet regime to carry forward to the next day. Satyapal is a married man with kids, hence spending his entire life savings on para-sports wasn’t an ideal decision for the household. He added, “My wife just told me one day if I continue like this there would be no future for our kids. I told her I wouldn’t stop until I win a medal for the country. I know we have the talent, it just need that one push which I’m willing to give, till my last breath. She has made peace with it, but I make sure I save up some for my children’s education every month.”
Fundamentally, para-sports was ignored simply because administration didn’t expect India’s athletes to medal in the events with no basic infrastructure. The most prestigious of stadiums in the country are not equipped for the differently abled. In Nehru stadium itself, there is no ramp area for an Wheelchair bound or handicapped athlete to enter. A recent survey on handicapped accessibility showed that only 5 % of the country’s stadiums built post 1995, were equipped for the differently abled. Hence, there was no plan in place for this revolution of sorts to take place.
But the single minded devotion of athletes such as Ankur Dhama and coaches such as Satyapal Singh has seen India’s largest Paralympic contingent in Rio this year. Similar to Dipa Karmakar’s scenario, as we invest more into a sport, in this case para-athletics, the more India, a nation of 1.1 billion people will know about a sport’s existence.
Regardless of the result in Rio, Satyapal isn’t giving up. He said, “These athletes have no one but me, I have scouted them from villages around the country to come to Delhi and live. I cannot just abandon them, how will they survive? They won’t get jobs easily, there are no jobs available in the government for para-athletes, even if they medal on the international stage. They have done nothing else in their life, because I have made them train. So it is my responsibility as a coach and a human being to be with them always. I know we will win a Paralympic medal today.”
With the Rio Paralaympics just two days away, India has another unsung set of heroes defying not just societal, but physical odds to reach the pinnacle. The least they deserve is our attention for the next 10 days so that they can prove the world wrong, again!
