The Birsa Munda Athletic Stadium in Jharkhand's capital city Ranchi witnessed a new joint national record in pole vault on Sunday. Dev Meena and Kuldeep Kumar, representing Madhya Pradesh, created history by scaling new heights in the 29th National Senior Athletics Federation Championships. Dev Meena, who won the gold medal, and Kuldeep, who won the silver medal, also qualified for the Commonwealth Games to be held in Glasgow this year. Even as the sight of the record achievement was a matter of pride, the sight of the two returning home after the competition was heartbreaking. For the organizers had not provided them with transportation facilities or help to carry their equipment, in spite of the fact that both had qualified for the international competition. A video of Dev Meena and his brothers Raj and Kuldeep leaving the stadium with their five-meter-long fibreglass poles loaded into an e-rickshaw, captured by a journalist, went viral. They were poles worth around Rs 15 lakh, imported from the American company UCS Spirit. Out of fear that the auto driver might refuse to take them thinking that they were expensive and fragile sports equipment, they even lied that they were plastic pipes.
It later emerged that the duo had faced similar bitter experience before too. Earlier this year, Dev Meena and Kuldeep were expelled from a train by the TTE at Panvel station in Maharashtra and fined Rs 3,000. This was because their sports equipment was mistaken for ‘iron pipes’. It is in this very month that in Andhra Pradesh, Railway Protection Force officials cut down poles tied to the exterior of a train by athletes from Tamil Nadu. The poles, which the athletes love more than their own lives, fell onto the railway tracks. Later, the train was stopped by pulling the safety chain and the poles were retrieved.
While cricket stars travel on chartered flights and under heavy security, track and field athletes who win medals for the country have to travel with their sports equipment in fear and stealth like criminals. Do even five percent of sports fans in India, who are so enthusiastic about hoisting giant cutouts of foreign football players and flags of various countries, know about the humiliation faced by the country's proud athletes? This experience will answer the question why India lags behind in international sports events.
There are other issues, including the attempt to expel Vinesh Phogat, who spoke out against the sexual harassment of a BJP leader who was the president of the Wrestling Federation, with foul play outside the ring. How many opponents and obstacles do Indian sports talents have to fight and overcome to enter the field! Who can fathom the depth of self-deprecation they had to experience even at the peak of their achievements?