India returned from the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games with 85 medals and fourth place overall. For several days, timelines filled with podium photographs, officials issued congratulations and people who had never watched a compound-archery match became experts in composure. Then cricket resumed its usual occupation of the national imagination.
I do not blame cricket for being loved. I blame the rest of us for using non-cricket athletes as periodic injections of patriotic emotion. We meet them at multi-sport Games, demand medals as proof of national progress and forget them during the years when progress is actually made. The Indian Olympic Association reported that India won 85 medals, including 21 golds, with athletics, shooting and archery among the major contributors. That breadth is the story. It should change how we cover, fund and follow sport.
A medal table can conceal as much as it reveals
Fourth place sounds tidy. It does not tell us which performances came from durable systems and which emerged despite fragile ones. A medal can be the final product of federation support, private academies, government schemes, family debt, personal stubbornness or all five. Treating every podium as evidence that the system works is comforting and frequently false.
We need post-Games audits by sport. Did the athlete receive promised equipment on time? Was international exposure appropriate? Did coaching remain stable? Was injury management competent? How many finalists, not merely medallists, improved personal or season bests? Which disciplines have credible succession plans? These questions are less glamorous than airport garlands, but they distinguish a sporting nation from a country that enjoys sporting festivals.
The official tally noted athletics contributed 24 medals, shooting 15 and archery nine. Those totals should lead to year-round coverage of domestic meets and selection contests. Instead, editors often decide there is no audience. Audiences cannot follow competitions they cannot find, scheduled at venues with little promotion and streamed with commentary that sounds as though it was recorded inside a cupboard.
Attention is part of infrastructure
Money matters, but attention has practical value too. Consistent coverage attracts sponsors, creates accountability and gives young athletes recognisable pathways. A shooter should not become visible only after winning gold. Her selection trials, technical changes, setbacks and domestic rivals are stories. An athletics season contains arguments about form and tactics every bit as rich as a cricket tour.
Olympics.com maintains sport and athlete coverage through its official platform, but Indian audiences need local reporting that understands federation structures, languages and regional pipelines. One national correspondent parachuting into twenty disciplines during Games fortnight cannot provide that knowledge. Newsrooms should assign beats, even modestly, and resist measuring every article against an IPL transfer rumour.
I also want broadcasters to stop presenting non-cricket sport as homework. Explain rules without condescension. Build athlete profiles before finals. Show qualifying rounds. Keep graphics accurate. Hire commentators who know the circuit and can describe technique rather than shouting “what a moment for India” at every available moment.
The cricket comparison is unavoidable
People tell me it is unfair to compare any sport with cricket because cricket earns its market. Fine. I am not proposing equal airtime for every district meet. I am asking why public broadcasters, federations and government-funded bodies so often imitate commercial neglect. Their mandate cannot be identical to a private channel chasing the largest immediate rating.
Cricket’s popularity was not created solely by spontaneous affection. It was reinforced by decades of broadcasting, narrative, heroes, schoolyard access and a domestic structure whose results mattered. Other sports need their own versions of that ecosystem. A child who sees archery once every four years cannot develop informed fandom, even if she feels proud for ninety seconds.
There is also a gender dimension. Many of India’s most compelling international athletes are women, yet coverage often reduces them to adversity biographies. We learn who opposed their career, how far they travelled and which social barrier they crossed. Those facts matter, but athletic excellence deserves technical respect. Tell me about release consistency, race distribution, defensive shape or recovery strategy. Do not turn every woman athlete into a motivational poster.
From 2026 to Los Angeles
The obvious next target is the 2028 Olympics. This is precisely when lazy triumphalism becomes dangerous. Asian dominance in a discipline does not automatically translate into an Olympic medal, and events differ. Federations must identify where performances are globally competitive rather than merely continentally successful.
That requires international benchmarking and honest selection. Famous names should not be insulated from trials, but selection systems must account intelligently for form, ranking events and injury rather than changing rules during the season. Athletes need clarity early enough to plan peaks. Coaches need contracts long enough to implement programmes and accountability strong enough to remove them when results and athlete welfare deteriorate.
Sports science must become ordinary rather than ceremonial. Nutrition, strength work, biomechanics, psychology and recovery should reach developmental athletes, not appear only after someone enters a medal-probable list. India’s depth at the Asian Games suggests a larger base. Converting finalists into Olympic contenders will depend on the unphotogenic details.
What supporters can do
Fans are not powerless consumers waiting for television executives. We can follow athletes and credible specialist outlets between Games. We can watch national championships, buy tickets when events are accessible and share good reporting rather than only medal graphics. We can learn enough to criticise federations without abusing athletes after a narrow loss.
Sponsors, too, should fund seasons rather than selfies. A contract that arrives after a medal is endorsement; one that supports training before it is investment. Both have value, but India needs more of the second. Companies eager to associate themselves with national aspiration should publish the duration and substance of athlete support.
Government must keep funding targeted programmes while demanding transparent outcomes. I am not ideologically opposed to elite investment. Medals require it. But public money should not vanish into opaque camps or endless foreign exposure without performance review. Nor should medal winners receive announcements that take months to become actual payments.
The 85-medal total gave us a picture of possibility. It did not give us permission to relax. Some sports have genuine momentum; others remain dependent on exceptional individuals. The test is whether an athlete who finishes sixth receives sharper support or disappears until the next qualification miracle.
I loved seeing India fourth. I would love more to see the country remain interested when nobody is standing on a podium. The next medal is being built now—in an ordinary gym, on a hot range, at a track without spectators. If cricket gets our daily curiosity while everyone else receives biennial gratitude, we should stop asking why the attention gap persists. We are maintaining it.
