Pervez Musharraf quit his job; Mayawati announced that she has a successor; Indian batsmen failed to handle Sri Lankan spin; and it was a very wet Delhi summer – plenty of unlikely things happened in and around India in recent weeks. But every sports lover would admit that nothing was more unexpected than India winning three medals at the Beijing Olympics.

But beyond the euphoria, an interesting pattern is emerging from these success stories. There’s something common in the triumphs of richie-rich shooter Abhinav Bindra (gold), lower middle-class boxer Vijender Kumar (bronze) and underprivileged wrestler Sushil Kumar (bronze). All these medals have come in individual sports. In fact, India didn’t even qualify for a single team sport such as hockey, football or basketball at Beijing.

It wasn’t always like this. Cynics always regarded India’s participation in the world’s biggest sporting spectacle as nothing more a waste of tax-payers’ money, an excuse for obese sports officials to enjoy a free fortnight in exotic cities. There was, however, a glorious exception: men’s hockey. In fact, though India played with distinction in Olympics football in 1948, 1956 (who would believe India finished fourth at Melbourne?) and 1960 and was good enough to be selected in men’s basketball in 1980 Moscow Olympics, for a majority across the world, hockey was synonymous with India in the world’s grandest sports gathering.

There were reasons for that. Football was the first game that gave a fillip to nationalism when barefoot Mohun Bagan players defeated East Yorkshire Regiment 2-1 to win the IFA Shield in 1911. No Indian club had beaten a European team before. If that triumph blew away the shibboleth of European racial superiority in football, then India’s international success in hockey raised people’s self-belief and pride. From 1928 in Amsterdam, when India won its first Olympic gold in hockey, to 1960 in Rome, when India lost an Olympic hockey game for the first time, there was no reason to dispute that.

And though India’s global supremacy was open to question after that defeat, hockey continued to be the emotional string that tugged at nation’s hearts. India’s last medal came in the boycott-hit 1980 Moscow Olympics. And yet national curiosity has never faltered in the years that followed. Every Olympic preview primarily centred around the question: “Can India win a gold this time?”

In Beijing, though, the umbilical cord was cut. For the first time, India failed to qualify for the Olympics in men’s hockey. The disappointment, though, has been overcome by winning medals in shooting, wrestling and boxing. That’s not all. At least two more boxers (Akhil Kumar and Jitender Kumar), one wrestler (Yogeshwar Dutt), a badminton player (Saina Nehwal) and the men’s tennis double pair (Paes-Bhupathi) came pretty close to standing on the medal winner’s podium. With a bit of luck, it could have ended with a six-medal haul in Beijing.

The success has also raised an interesting question: Why are we doing so well in individual disciplines and falling by the wayside in team sports?
Olympian Gurbachan Singh Randhawa feels that to become a champion in any team sport, one has to create a pool of 16 top players. “That’s a far more difficult task than training five individual performers and also relatively less expensive. The success of the three individual medal winners in Beijing will spur more sportspersons to take up these disciplines. The future of individual sports in brighter than ever,” says Randhawa, who finished fifth in 110m hurdles in 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

Former international hockey player Ashok Kumar too admits that sportspersons are veering towards individual games such as boxing, shooting or tennis. “In individual events, everything depends on your own talent and dedication,” he says, “but in team games, a single, brilliant individual cannot lift his entire side. Even Dhyanchand, the greatest hockey player ever, once said, I am what I am because of my teammates,” says Kumar, Dhyanchand’s son.

Individual brilliance has its limitations in team games. Liberia’s striker George Weah won the world footballer of the year award in 1995 but never managed to make his strife-torn country even qualify for the World Cup finals.

Kumar, who had scored the winning goal in India’s 1975 World Cup triumph, also points out that fewer youngsters are taking to hockey and the chances of producing potentially quality players is dwindling. “When lakhs play the game, you get a few hundred classy players. But when only a few thousands are playing the game, how can you get the same number of quality players?”

Adman Santosh Desai, who also monitors social trends, feels that what’s happening at the shooting range and in the boxing ring has its roots in the larger attitudinal changes brought about by liberalisation. Says Desai, CEO, Future Brands, “As a people, Indians are more individual-centred now than in the pre-liberalisation era and this is mirrored in the success of sportsmen in individual events.”

The bottomline, though, is that team events arouse more emotions in more people. While an individual triumph becomes a matter of national pride, it is team triumphs that spark off countrywide, all-night celebrations. Which is why shooter Manavjit Singh says that one must continue to promote team sports that are enjoyed by the masses in India. “At the same time, we should also pay special attention to individual medal-winning prospects,” says Manavjit, who struck gold in the 2006 world shooting championship.

Simply put, going solo is the mood of the moment but only a balance of success in both team events and individual disciplines can make India a great sporting nation