Neeru Dhanda won two Asian Games gold medals in trap shooting, and Indian sport performed its usual little ceremony. We applauded, circulated clips, learned a few biographical details and then returned to discussing a cricket team whose reserve opener had sneezed. I do not blame cricket for being loved. Affection is not a public resource that must be rationed equally. I blame the institutions around Indian sport for behaving as though attention to everyone else can begin only after a medal and expire before the athlete reaches home. Dhanda’s success was not a charming interruption in the national cricket feed. It was the visible result of years spent mastering an expensive, unforgiving discipline in which a fraction of hesitation can erase a day’s work. She deserves to be treated as a major athlete, not a motivational notification.
A medal is the end of the work, not the start of the story
The detailed account of Dhanda’s double gold captures both the achievement and the personal promise behind it. What strikes me is how often such texture appears only after victory. Before the final, where were the profiles explaining her form, coaching changes, equipment choices and competitive path? Where were the broadcasts teaching casual viewers how trap qualification works or why conditions alter a shooter’s decisions? We cannot complain that audiences ignore a sport while offering them no characters, stakes or language with which to follow it.
Cricket has built narrative infrastructure over decades. Fans know the domestic pathway, selection arguments, rivalries, injuries and statistics before a player reaches the national side. Non-cricket athletes frequently arrive in public consciousness at the podium, stripped of context. The medal must carry the entire story. That makes every result feel like a surprise and every defeat like disappearance. Dhanda’s gold should instead be one chapter in a continuing career that broadcasters and federations have already taught us to understand.
Shooting is particularly vulnerable to medal-only coverage because it does not naturally resemble a television spectacle. The drama is internal and technical. Competitors control breathing, timing and vision while targets appear and vanish in moments. A poor production can make the event look static; a good one can reveal extraordinary pressure. Indian broadcasters should invest in explanatory graphics, microphone access where rules permit, athlete interviews and short features before major competitions. Viewers do not need the sport simplified into noise. They need help seeing what trained eyes already see.
India’s broader contingent cannot live on Olympic leftovers
The Indian Asian Games programme involved hundreds of athletes across dozens of sports. That scale should create a festival of national sporting curiosity. Instead, coverage often becomes a medal ticker with occasional live windows for famous names. A country that can run countless cricket shoulder programmes can surely produce one daily studio show connecting shooting, wrestling, hockey, boxing, athletics and newer events. The problem is not the absence of content. It is the industry’s belief that non-cricket sport must arrive with an audience fully formed before anyone invests in building one.
Sponsors make the same circular argument. They say an athlete lacks visibility, then withhold the resources that could create visibility. After a gold medal, they rush toward congratulatory posts whose design budget may exceed what they offered during training. I would like to see longer contracts with performance bands, not one-off rewards based entirely on podium outcomes. Shooting requires ammunition, travel, coaching, sports science and reliable access to ranges. A champion should not have to convert every final into a funding application.
There is a gender dimension too. Women athletes are celebrated as symbols of resilience while their competitive expertise receives less discussion than their family sacrifice. We ask who supported them, how they balanced responsibilities and what obstacles they overcame. Those questions can matter, but they should not replace analysis of technique and ambition. Dhanda is not interesting merely because she is an inspiring Indian woman. She is interesting because she outperformed elite Asian competitors in a sport of severe precision. Respect begins when we discuss a sportswoman as a sports professional rather than a social parable carrying a gun.
Federations have to earn sustained interest
It is easy to blame television and sponsors, but federations cannot demand coverage while communicating badly. They should publish reliable calendars, athlete biographies, selection criteria, live results and high-quality photographs in formats newsrooms can use. They should make coaches and athletes available without manufacturing controversy. They should explain trials and quotas before disputes erupt. Fans are more likely to follow a circuit when they know what each event means. Too many Indian sports bodies treat information as a private favour released through preferred channels.
Selection transparency is particularly important in shooting, where depth creates difficult choices. A country may have several world-class contenders for limited places. Clear policies protect both athletes and credibility. When rules change late or performance windows are poorly explained, supporters spend their energy litigating fairness rather than appreciating the sport. I want federations to publish rolling rankings, trial weights and objective criteria well in advance. Athletes should be able to plan seasons, and journalists should be able to scrutinise decisions without relying on leaks.
The state’s role is substantial but should become more precise. Target Olympic Podium Scheme support, federation funding and institutional jobs have helped many athletes, yet we need public reporting on what support reaches whom and when. Money announced after success is politically attractive; money delivered before a World Cup is competitively useful. Athletes should have access to mental-health care, nutrition, physiotherapy and equipment expertise as routine services rather than rewards for already becoming famous.
Attention can be trained, just like athletes
Some readers will say that audiences simply prefer cricket and no lecture can change taste. I agree that scolding fans is futile. But taste is not born in a vacuum. It follows access, repetition, heroes and shared memory. Indians learned to care about badminton, boxing, javelin and shooting because athletes succeeded and their stories became available. Not every competition will draw IPL numbers, nor must it. A healthy sporting culture contains different scales of audience. Public broadcasters, digital platforms and regional media can serve dedicated communities without pretending every event is mass entertainment.
Schools and local clubs matter as well. A child who has tried an air rifle, watched a domestic event or met a district athlete sees shooting differently from someone encountering it once every four years. State associations should create safe introductory programmes and spectator days around competitions. The aim is not to produce champions from every class. It is to create sporting literacy. We understand a cover drive partly because millions have held a bat. Other sports need their own points of contact.
Dhanda’s double gold offers an obvious opportunity. Follow her next season. Show the inevitable difficult days as well as the medals. Explain how elite shooters reset after a missed target and how selection pressure changes preparation. Let viewers meet her competitors so the next final has history. If she loses, do not vanish. That is the real test of whether Indian sport values athletes or merely collects their podium photographs.
I am delighted by the gold medals, but delight is the easiest contribution a sports culture can make. The harder task is attention before certainty. Neeru Dhanda should not need to win twice in one Games to become visible, and the next gifted shooter should not have to wait for a final to acquire a biography. Cricket’s dominance will not end, nor do I want it to. I want the rest of Indian sport to stop living in its margins. A nation of this size has enough curiosity for more than one conversation. Our institutions must finally behave as though that is true.
