India’s poor performance at the Asian Games: Who Is Really Responsible?

 

India’s poor performance at the Asian Games: Who Is Really Responsible?

We have the population. We have the talent. We have the money. So what is stopping India from becoming a sporting powerhouse?

There is something uncomfortable about India's performance at the 2026 Asian Games. Not because Indian athletes have failed but because India has still not converted its enormous potential into a reliable sporting system. As the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games enter their final phase, India has been around 12th in the medal table, with 45 medals as of September 29th. This is a significant drop from the 107 medals India won at Hangzhou in 2023, when India finished fourth.

The obvious question is: Who is responsible for this debacle? The Government? The Sports Ministry? The Indian Olympic Association? The National Sports Federations? The coaches? The athletes? The infrastructure? Our sporting culture? Or, as some may crudely suggest, are Indians simply not capable of competing at the highest level?

The problem is not the Indian athlete. Perhaps, it is the Indian sporting ecosystem. If we want to fix it, we must be honest about who is accountable for which part of that ecosystem.

It is not good to indulge in blaming so, let us get into the facts. Every sporting competition contains winners, losers, mistakes and surprises. Winning and losing is a part and parcel of a sport. For example, India's Manu Bhaker, despite being a double Olympic medallist, returned empty handed from four shooting events in Aichi-Nagoya. India's shooting campaign also produced several agonising near-misses. This does not make them poor athletes. The same athlete who can win Olympic medals can have an unsuccessful tournament. Performance variation is part of sport, however, inconsistency cannot.

When an entire sporting ecosystem repeatedly produces inconsistent results, we have to look beyond individual athletes. Here is where accountability begins. Hence, who is responsible? Everyone has a role—but not everyone carries the same responsibility. Let us try to accommodate the accountability into six layers.

The Government — It is responsible for the ecosystem. It cannot run every sport however, it can create the conditions in which sports can flourish. It controls or substantially influences:

• Sports policy
• Funding
• Infrastructure
• Athlete-support schemes
• Sports education
• Talent identification
• Governance regulations
• Federation recognition
• International-event preparation
• Sports science and research
• Grassroots programmes

No doubt, this Govt increased its investment and institutional support. Schemes such as TOPS have helped create an elite-support structure. The Ministry's own data shows that TOPS has been used to support a selected group of elite and developmental athletes. However, here lies an important distinction – “Funding elite athletes is not the same as creating elite athletes.”

TOPS can support a champion. It cannot, by itself, create the 10-year pathway that produces the next champion. We need to ask:

• Where was that athlete five, ten or fifteen years before entering TOPS?
• Who discovered the child?
• Who developed the physical attributes?
• Who provided the coach?
• Who provided the competition?
• Who identified the weakness?
• Who provided sports psychology?
• Who prevented injury?
• Who created the pathway from school → district → state → national → international?

These are the bigger questions the Government has to answer.

Sports Federations — perhaps the biggest accountability gap is here. A federation should exist for the sport and the athlete. Not the other way around. Yet Indian sport has repeatedly experienced disputes over selection, governance, recognition, elections, administration and competing factions. In 2026, disputes surrounding National Sports Federations have already affected athletes' preparation and participation. Reports have documented governance problems involving federations including handball and karate. Courts recorded their observations over selection processes and recognition mechanism. 

These are highly unacceptable. Imagine preparing for four years for an Asian Games and then discovering that the organisation responsible for your sport cannot decide on who is eligible to represent India?  An athlete cannot solve this problem nor the coach. We cannot expect the Govt to solve every dispute. However, the federation must resolve such issues. Sports administration should be treated as a profession. Running a national sports federation requires knowledge of:

• high-performance sport
• athlete development
• sports science
• competition planning
• finance
• governance
• international rules
• sponsorship
• technology
• safeguarding sports personnel
• performance analytics

It should not primarily be about who controls an organisation. The athlete should be the customer of the sporting system—not the victim of it.

The Sports Ministry and Government agencies are accountable for execution. The Government can legitimately say: "We have increased funding,” however, this is not the end. Instead, it starts from here. The important question is: What did the money produce?

Did it produce:

• more international-standard coaches?
• more competitive athletes?
• more youth champions?
• better injury prevention?
• better sports science?
• better nutrition?
• stronger leagues?
• better facilities beyond major cities?
• measurable improvement in international rankings?

Money spent is input. Medals are output. I would mention that even medals are not enough. The real KPI should be: How many sustainable high-performance athletes are we producing every Olympic cycle? 

India needs to move from a medal-centric model to a pipeline-centric model.

Coaches and high-performance professionals — a forgotten link. We often talk about athletes. We talk about federations. We talk about Government funding. However,  world-class sport is ultimately a high-performance engineering problem. The athlete is the output. Behind that athlete should be a team involving:

• coach
• strength & conditioning specialist
• physiotherapist
• sports physician
• nutritionist
• psychologist
• biomechanics expert
• performance analyst
• recovery specialist

India is improving in this area, but the depth of the ecosystem remains uneven. The Sports Ministry itself has recently emphasised the need to develop a stronger indigenous coaching ecosystem and provide international exposure to Indian coaches. That is important.

Because importing a foreign coach for an elite athlete is not the same as building 10,000 Indian coaches capable of developing the next generation.

The athletes — yes, they too must accept accountability. Defending athletes from systemic failures should not mean treating athletes as untouchable. Elite athletes have responsibilities too. At the highest level, talent is only the entry ticket. An athlete must be accountable for:

• discipline
• training
• nutrition
• recovery
• preparation
• competition behaviour
• continuous learning
• physical conditioning
• mental preparation
• adherence to anti-doping rules

And occasionally, an athlete simply underperforms. That happens. We should be able to say: "You had a poor performance today." without saying: "You are a poor athlete." That distinction matters.

Indian society - Do we really want to become a sporting nation? We say yes. However, what happens when an Indian child says: "I want to become an athlete." The typical answers we get are:

• "First finish your studies" 
• "Sports is fine as a hobby"
• "What will you do for a career?"
• "Sports is risky"

The Parents are not wrong. What are the motivating factors available today to choose sports as a career? A job quota that has got stagnation? Career life in Sports is short and post that – what is in store? If the career is not successful, what are the other options to survive? 

Until relatively recently, for most Indian families, a sporting career was an uncertain economic proposition. Cricket changed that perception however, it also created another problem. We have demonstrated that Indians can become world-class athletes—but disproportionately in one sport.

The question is not: Why don't Indians have sporting talent? (we have a lot) The question is: Why does talent outside cricket struggle to find a reliable economic and professional pathway?

Then how China does it? - China is not simply a country with more talented athletes. It has built a much deeper sporting system. China's approach has historically involved: talent identification → specialised training → institutional support → sports schools → elite coaching → sports science → international competition → systematic selection.

China also targets sports strategically. That is an important lesson.

An Asian Games medal table is not simply a contest between populations. It is a contest between sporting systems. India has 1.4+ billion people and so is China. So population alone cannot explain the difference. The more useful question is: How effectively does each country convert population into sporting talent? That is totally a different metric.

The next question is: what about smaller countries? This is where India should pay particular attention. A country does not need China's population to succeed. Smaller countries can become disproportionately successful when they concentrate on sports where they have:

• cultural depth
• coaching expertise
• physiological advantages
• historical strength
• infrastructure
• strong talent pipelines

The lesson is not: "Copy China." One should never do that.  It is: Choose; Focus; Build depth; Repeat. India cannot realistically become world-class in every sport simultaneously.

What about infrastructure? – India has stadiums. The problem is: Where are those facilities, who can access them, and how are they used? A magnificent stadium that hosts an event twice a year does not create champions. A functional training centre used 300 days a year by thousands of children might. This is where initiatives such as Khelo India matter. The infrastructure should be measured by utilisation and athlete outcomes, not simply by the number of facilities inaugurated.

There is another problem: we sometimes confuse "event management" with "sports development" India has become increasingly capable of hosting major sporting events. Hosting an event and developing athletes are two different capabilities. One can build a magnificent stadium in three years but cannot build a world-class athlete in three years. That requires 10–15 years of continuity.

That means governments, federations and coaches must think beyond the next tournament. Then, what should India do?

Create a 15-year athlete pipeline: Let us not prepare for Los Angeles 2028 (this is also required but focus should be long term). We should be focussing on: "Who are our 2032, 2036 and 2040 athletes?" Identify them early; Track them; Develop them; Protect them. Make federations professionally accountable.

Every federation should have measurable KPIs - Not just meetings, but number of athletes in world ranking, international medals, youth to senior conversion, injury rates, coach development, participation levels, selection transparency, to name a few. The most important factor is: A poor governance should have consequences.

Build a national sports-data platform: Every serious athlete should have a longitudinal performance record. Imagine being able to track: age → physical development → competition results → injury history → technical weaknesses → training load → international ranking → progression. That would turn sports development into a data-driven process rather than an annual selection exercise.

Make schools the real talent mine: India has millions of schools. That is our biggest sporting infrastructure. Every school does not need an Olympic stadium but every child should have access to Athletics, swimming, gymnastics, wrestling, boxing, badminton, football, basketball, volleyball shooting  and wherever  feasible indigenous sports. Talent identification should start there.

Success doesn’t mean only Medals: This is critical. Suppose India wins 100 medals in one Asian Games and 40 in the next. Does this mean a system collapse? Not necessarily. Maybe the first 100 included an exceptional generation. The better question is: How many competitive athletes are we producing continuously? A mature sporting nation should have depth. If one athlete retires, three others should be ready.

Create economic security for athletes: This may be the biggest cultural intervention. If a talented 14-year-old knows that becoming an elite athlete can eventually provide: education, income, insurance, employment opportunities, retirement security, professional recognition etc., then the parents will be far more willing to support the sporting journey. Sport must become a career, not a gamble.

Hold everyone accountable: This is perhaps the most important change. Let us not fire a coach because an athlete lost. Let us not blame an athlete because a federation failed. Let us not blame the Government for every lost point. Most importantly, let us not allow federations to hide behind the phrase: "Sports is unpredictable." The statement is partially right. Sport is unpredictable but Systems are not

More than hosting a Olympics event, India should focus on:  Can India build a sporting ecosystem worthy of hosting the Olympics? Because there is an important distinction: Hosting the Olympics is an event. Becoming an Olympic sporting nation is a system. India should pursue both—but the latter is far more important.

Let us get back to the old question: “Why did India perform so poorly?" India still depend heavily on exceptional individuals instead of exceptional systems. Exceptional athletes should emerge from an exceptional system. When one champion retires, another should already be coming through. That is what China has demonstrated. That is what smaller sporting nations have demonstrated.

This  what India needs to build. India does not lack talent. India does not lack ambition. India does not lack money. India does not even lack examples of excellence. What India lacks is consistency of execution across the entire sporting value chain. Execution is an accountability issue. 

Let us rephrase our question: "Who is accountable for building the next 1,000 champions—and what will we measure them on?" In all fairness, this should be the conversation India should be having before it talks about hosting the Olympics. Let us build a sporting pipeline before we host the biggest sporting event. 

All the best! 

AI Generated image based inputs provided from my side.