An Eternally Faltering Flame

One of the stranger sights of this sporting year occurred in New Delhi on the sixth stop of the Olympic torch's world tour. The eternal flame's five-week trip was meant to ignite worldwide sporting passion. India awarded the event appropriate pomp: television networks ran blanket coverage and main roads in the Indian capital were closed off, causing world-record traffic jams. But once the relay started, a look at the torchbearers revealed a surprise. Aside from a handful of lesser Olympians, India had chosen Bollywood stars and cricketers as the guardians of sports' supreme icon. The crowds were huge, and understandably so: the incongruous sight of India's finest actor, Aamir Khan, outfitted for his latest role as a 19th century anti-British mutineer with shoulder-length hair and a handlebar moustache, jogging with the futuristic metallic torch, was undeniably arresting. The newspapers went front page with pictures of an equally unlikely torchbearer—actress and former Miss World Aishwarya Rai, kitted out in a white tracksuit, giggling with her boyfriend, actor Vivek Oberoi. It was a perplexing spectacle. Watching the decidedly un-Olympian figure of former Indian cricket captain Kapil Dev paunchily puffing his way past New Delhi's Red Fort, I found myself wondering: Does India, nation of a billion, really have no sports stars?

The simple answer is no, unless you count cricket, which the International Olympic Committee rather unsportingly doesn't. The painful truth is India is rubbish at pretty much every other game. It has no football team worthy of the name, ranking 142nd in the world, behind the Maldives (paradise-island nation, pop. 339,330). Its rugby squad lost 78-3 in a recent match in England, to Pershore (pleasant market town, pop. 7,304). And in a century of Olympics, India has won just 16 medals—fewer than that other nation of a billion, China, typically wins at a single Games—and only eight in the last 50 years.

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It's not that India lacks competitive spirit, as anyone who has queued there can attest. Nor national pride: the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Research Center's 2003 Global Attitudes survey found India was the most nationalistic place on earth, with 74% of respondents "completely agreeing" that Indian culture is superior. How, then, to explain the nation's supreme—and rather refreshing—unprofessionalism in sports?

Indian friends offer several explanations. One says parents steer their children toward respectable, cerebral, indoor activities, such as studying to become a doctor or engineer, and away from the frivolity of playing outdoors. Another says facilities are inadequate and the country lacks a nationwide professional league in any sport. A third avers that athletics simply aren't in the Indian genes. Whatever the reason, this inertia is apparently here to stay.

This year, only long jumper Anju George (who won gold at the 2002 Asian Games), air-rifle markswoman Anjali Bhagwat and doubles tennis players Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi look like serious medal hopes for India. Does that mean the country is sending a small team? Hardly. In 2000, India flew a contingent of 113 people to Sydney, where it won a single bronze in women's weightlifting. This year, expectations are of an even bigger delegation: 78 athletes for 28 sports—significantly bigger than the average Olympic team of 53—and a host of officials, trainers, masseurs and managers. As an Indian former Taekwondo champion says dryly: "The Indian team always has lots of 'coaches' and 'dietary specialists.' People just ask their friends if they want a free trip to Greece."

The Olympics have always been about something bigger than who can run the fastest or shoot the straightest. The athletes—the macho brawn of an Australian swimmer, the hard-won flawlessness of a Romanian gymnast—tell you something about the places they are from. Perhaps then India's oversized and underfunded squad serves a purpose in these humorless days of professional sports and all the science, diets and doping the era brings. It reminds us that at least one nation remembers the spirit in which the modern Olympics were founded—as a contest among amateurs. And that taking part, however haplessly, is the thing that counts. After all, it's only a game.