Winning the crowd: What Indian athletics needs to learn from the others

New Delhi: “I ran until I was about to die, and stopped, ran until I was about to die again and stopped. It’s probably not a very smart or clever way to run a half-marathon.”
A comment that would fit any first-timer attempting the tough distance anywhere in the world, only this one was from Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen. The global track stalwart, who is reeling in one world record after another on the track, had added glamour to the Copenhagen half marathon on September 15, though he was left smiling more in submission to the specialist road runners who proved too good.
A daring attempt no doubt considering he had swept to victory in the 1,500m at the Brussels Diamond League Finals two nights earlier.
Ingebrigtsen came in 34th, clocking 63 minutes, 13 seconds in a race won by Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe, the world half-marathon champion clocking 58.05. Considered an extraordinary talent – a threshold/VO2 max test as a 17-year-old had confirmed his potential and he has lived up to those expectation with his phenomenal efforts as a competitor on the track.
The first 10km was comfortable pace, he said after the race. But Ingebrigtsen had to twice stop along the route, and acknowledged that the support of the Danish fans helped continue and finish. “It’s fun, but it’s tough,” he acknowledged. “I’m definitely not going to try again, for a couple of years…It’s definitely not my thing, at least for now.”
But considering that his entry was initially a mysterious ‘No Name’ bib No.2 before news filtered that Ingebrigtsen would indeed run in Copenhagen, it seemed to be in keeping with the changing landscape of athletics. His entry definitely drew global attention to the race, and also appeared to be in keeping with pushing the glamour quotient of his sport.
Barely two weeks earlier, Mondo Duplantis, the Swedish mega star of pole-vault and Karsten Warholm, Norway’s 400m hurdles world record holder, had put on a show, racing in a “100m to settle it all” at the Zurich Diamond League.
World Athletics introducing $50,000 for its Paris Games gold medallists and US shot-putter Ryan Crouser, who won his third consecutive Olympic gold in the French capital, announcing his American shot put league are all efforts to further expand the profile of track and field.
Legacy is vital for an Olympics, and the Paris Games was as good as any edition before in the most important aspect – fan participation. A capacity crowd of 80,000 was at Stade de France every evening of the athletics competition.
Venue after venue, the Games ran to a packed house, which raises the question why Indian sports administrators seldom focus on bringing crowds into sporting arenas at home. Cricket, despite its mega television deals, draws huge attendance in the Indian Premier League and white-ball bilateral games, and when it comes to icon Test series against Australia and England.
Indian badminton’s rise this century can be attributed to Saina Nehwal, and the way fans warmed up. Everywhere Nehwal played, parents made it a point to check the likely timings of her matches and flocked to the badminton hall. Although PV Sindhu’s achievements kept the game in the public consciousness, the Nehwal-level crowds have thinned.
Athletics Federation of India seemed to have missed out on a massive opportunity to get fans of track and field back. Athletics meets in the last two decades have been held in empty stadiums, unless competitions are held in Kerala, which still attracts sizeable number of spectators that testify to its athletics tradition. AFI squandered a literally golden opportunity. It did not cash in on Neeraj Chopra’s zooming popularity after his Tokyo Olympics gold medal by even not staging an invitational javelin competition. Even that would have attracted fans by the thousands.
When Chopra eventually competed at home, at the Inter-State meet in Bhubaneswar this May, three years after his Tokyo high but still the reigning Olympic and world champion, there was barely any fan to cheer their icon. Even a mini domestic series headed by India’s 80m-plus throwers would have evinced huge interest.
As India’s ambition to successfully bid for the 2036 Olympics grows, besides putting in place world-class systems and goading sports federations to finetune an athlete-focused approach, there is an urgent need to prioritise fan-friendly competitions. Sometimes, a crowd-engaged meet can be more memorable than even world-class timings and distances.