'Campaigns for Games bid should be scientific'

Q&A

Union Sports Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar tells how India lost the bid to host the 2014 Asian Games.

Why must you fight with Suresh Kalmadi?
I don't fight with Kalmadi over anything. He has made some remarks about me that I have seen in the Press. I have no comment to make.

Why did New Delhi lose the bid for hosting the 2014 Asian Games?
Quite frankly, the better presentation won. The Indian Olympics Association (IOA) had been very confident of winning it. They believed it was more or less in the bag. Then, I heard that after the Doha games, the Koreans had been posing a question to which we didn't have a proper answer. This was: these kinds of games are allotted to countries, not to cities. South Korea was saying: "We first did it in Busan and we are now going to do it in Incheon". But they were also asking a question: "Why Delhi in 1951, Delhi in 1982, again, Delhi in 2014 and in between, Delhi again for the 2010 Commonwealth Games?" So they (Republic of Korea) stressed the point that the Indians were repeatedly asking for these kinds of games for a single city, whereas the spirit of the Olympics movement was that it should move to different cities so that the legacy of these games is enjoyed by a large number of cities rather than a single city.

This argument began coming to my ears at around the time of the Doha Games. IOA approached me for additional funding for its campaign. Then, in the April 12 Cabinet meeting, I asked the Ministry of External Affairs, which had been heavily involved in the campaign, to give me a statement on what kind of support we had.

I found that the written commitments in our favour were no more than about a dozen. The rest were either expressions of pious intention or outright support for the other side. So I wondered on what basis we were so confident, indeed overconfident, of winning. Since I am a diplomat of four decades' standing and have been involved in numerous such international contests, there was scepticism in my mind that didn't appear to be shared by the delegation that was going out to Kuwait.

When they (the delegation) arrived in Kuwait, the Koreans dropped their most effective bombshell. In their presentation, they said that whereas the Indian delegation proposed to showcase India, they had already showcased South Korea at Busan and what they would showcase was Asia "" as the great resurgent power of this century! That particular pitch probably swung several delegations in favour of the Republic of Korea. I was told that the RoK delegation had a very large number of sportspersons of high distinction (somebody gave me a figure of 19 gold medalists), whereas the composition of our delegation was the usual gallimaufry.

And the confidence that the RoK had that they were going to win it "" because I think they'd done their counting much more accurately ""was demonstrated immediately after the victory because hours after, they distributed printed invitation cards to their celebratory reception that evening!

So we never had a chance?
No, ex post facto, I think our confidence in ourselves was highly misplaced. The scientific manner in which the Koreans had gone about their campaign, and the finesse they had exhibited, edged us out. But having said that, I must tell you what the chairman of the meeting said. The margin of the votes is never revealed, but he said the difference was determined by a "narrow margin". So clearly, both were neck and neck and it was the superior Korean presentation and campaign that swung the balance in their favour. We ought to mount our campaigns in a much more scientific way.

Is some of this overconfidence evident in the organisation of the Commonwealth Games?
No, I am confident that I am going to give you a very good Commonwealth Games. You know, it has been an old Indian tradition that the 'pandal' starts going up only when the 'baraat' arrives... So the Indian ethos cannot be radically changed. But every Indian wedding is a splendid wedding. The Commonwealth Games are going to be a splendid games.

Didn't you have anything to do with the presentation in Kuwait?
I was not invited by the IOA to accompany them to Kuwait. I have an extremely competent secretary and I deputed him to go along. I am also told that our ambassador in Kuwait did an outstanding job of making arrangements and interaction with the electoral college. So from the government, we really put our best foot forward

Do we really need the government to have a portfolio of sports?
After a year and a half in this job, I am deeply convinced that the government support is needed to take sports to the huge mass of children, adolescents and youth who have no access to organised games.

Tragically, the ministry of sports, especially in the framework of the National Sports Policy, 2002, is conceived as being one that is involved in the organisation of mega events. Sports is a state subject and the federations spot talent and nurture it. The big lacuna in India is to spot talent and nurture it. That is the only way you can create a reservoir of talent and nurture it to excellence "" like the way they do in Cuba.

How does Cuba do it?
In the 1968 Olympics, Cuba stood twenty-first. By 1972 they had slashed that by half to reach the fourteenth position. In the 1976 Montreal Olympics, they again slashed it by half to reach the eighth position. In the 1982 Moscow Olympics, they slashed it by half to stand fourth. This was boycotted by the West. In 1984, they reciprocally boycotted the Olympics in Los Angeles. In the last 25 years, they have always been among the first 10 positions. This is a country with a total population less than the National Capital Region of Delhi.

How have they managed it?
Their senior-most Cabinet minister, the man who was responsible for repulsing the invasion of the Bay of Pigs in 1961, is in charge of the Olympics. Sports and physical education is made accessible to every child. There is full recognition of the fact that the career of a sportsperson is short and limited. So, as part of the same sports policy, there is in place a scheme for employment. Where this is not possible, there is a social security system. Nobody who has brought excellence in sport in Cuba is ever neglected.