Whenever India’s para-athletes win, our media discovers them in a burst of adjectives. They are “inspiring,” “indomitable” and “warriors.” Then the medal ceremony ends, the adjectives are packed away, and coverage returns to analysing a cricketer’s practice session from six camera angles. I have grown suspicious of inspiration when it functions as a substitute for attention.
The International Paralympic Committee treats para sport as elite competition with classifications, records and technical demands. The Asian Para Games information on Olympics.com provides the event context Indian outlets should have used well before opening day. Coverage should explain form, rivals, classifications and selection. Instead, athletes often arrive in public consciousness only after winning.
I do not want a charitable corner for para sport. I want journalism. Tell me why a thrower changed technique, how a shooter managed a final, where a badminton player gained tactical advantage, and which federation decisions helped or hindered preparation. Sport becomes compelling when audiences understand difficulty. Sentiment without detail reduces athletes to moral lessons.
Cricket is not the villain; laziness is
It is fashionable to blame cricket for everything. I do not. Cricket earned its audience through decades of broadcasting, heroes, rivalries and institutional investment. The problem is that editors use cricket’s popularity as an excuse never to build equivalent knowledge elsewhere. Demand is treated as a natural resource rather than something coverage helps create.
If a newsroom assigns reporters only after a medal, it will always conclude that readers lacked prior interest. If broadcasters hide events, fail to promote schedules and provide no analysis, they cannot cite low audiences as evidence of indifference. This circular logic protects cheap programming.
Para sport exposes the weakness especially clearly because classifications require explanation. A casual viewer may not immediately understand why athletes with different impairments compete in particular groups. That is not a barrier; it is a reporting assignment. Cricket’s leg-before-wicket law is hardly self-explanatory, yet broadcasters teach it repeatedly.
Government funding deserves scrutiny too. India’s Target Olympic Podium Scheme shows that high-performance support can be institutional rather than improvised. But funding announcements are not the same as athlete experience. Money must arrive on time, equipment procurement should not become a bureaucratic obstacle course, and support staff need continuity.
Stop turning biography into the whole event
Human stories matter. An athlete’s path through inaccessible schools, expensive prosthetics or social prejudice can reveal failures that sport alone cannot. But biography should enrich performance coverage, not swallow it. Too many profiles devote paragraphs to hardship and one sentence to technique. That ratio reassures readers about the athlete’s courage while denying the athlete’s expertise.
I want Indian para-athletes allowed the full range of sporting identity. They can be tactically brilliant, inconsistent, funny, arrogant, nervous or out of form. They need not remain permanently grateful symbols. Equality includes the dignity of being assessed seriously.
Sponsors should understand this as well. A medal-time campaign featuring a para-athlete is pleasant; a multi-year endorsement that funds training and keeps the athlete visible is useful. Brands happily sign cricketers before they become established internationals because they understand potential. In para sport they often wait until the podium has removed all risk.
Coverage must begin before victory
My practical demand is simple. Major outlets should publish team guides, event calendars and athlete profiles before competition. Broadcasters should provide discoverable schedules and knowledgeable commentary. Sports desks should retain reporters who understand classifications and domestic circuits. Federations should release timely results in usable formats rather than treating information as a favour.
Schools and local clubs matter too. Children cannot imagine pursuing a sport they never see. Accessibility is not only ramps at stadiums; it is access to coaching, classification advice, equipment and competition. Elite medals can expand that pipeline only if institutions use the moment.
Some readers will say India has limited sporting bandwidth and cricket will inevitably dominate. I accept domination; I reject monopoly. A country of India’s size can follow more than one story. The audience that learned franchise net run rates can learn para-badminton classifications.
I will celebrate every Indian medal. But I refuse to call the resulting attention a triumph if we ignored the athlete until success made ignorance awkward. Para-athletes do not owe us inspiration. We owe them competent coverage.
