however short the tally was than expected, many columns have been written about India’s showing in Rio. But the Goan contribution to the sporting culture of the land has gone down slowly and surely. The Rio Olympics may be seen as a beacon that should light the way to future success at not only the Olympics but at international events. Despite our failure to repeat the golden success at Beijing, where Abhinav Bindra got a gold medal in 10m air rifle shooting, we came with a silver and a bronze. Yes, we lost medals by a whisker in some events. We can pat our backs now for being a “whiskered” nation.
Some said we lost to Belgium in field hockey by a whisker, though we lost 1-3. But it was the second loss to Belgium, as we indeed lost by a whisker, going down1-2, in the Champions Trophy in June. To remind ourselves, India lost by 0-3 to Belgium in the 2012 London Olympics. However, India came second to Australia in the Champions Trophy and much was expected from the team at Rio. Since 1980 Moscow Olympics, which were boycotted by the western hemisphere nations, India has failed to win gold, and hit the nadir at London when we lost 2-3 to South Africa, and finished at rock-bottom — 12th.
Talking of Indian history and looking at it from the Goan perspective, I am sad that no Goan made to the Rio Olympics, both in the men’s and women’s hockey teams. For sporting history buffs, the first Goan in the Olympics was Peter Paul Fernandes of Karachi, who went with the Indian team for the 1936 Berlin Olympics, along with the legend, Dyand Chand, and his brother Roop Chand. Dyand and Roop formed a formidable duo in the forward line which ruled out the Goan Johny Pinto, a marginally better player than Roop.
The last time a Goan represented India was in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, with Merwyn Fernandes, scoring a hat-trick of playing in three Olympics. In the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, Merwyn had company of Joaquim Carvalho and Marcellus Gomes, while he was the lone Goan in the 1980 Moscow men’s gold medal winning team. But he had company of four Goans — Margaret Toscano, Eliza Nelson (nee Mendonca), Selma D’Silva and Lorraine Fernandes — in the women’s team. Lorraine achieved the unique feat of a daughter imitating her father, Lawrie Fernandes, who played in the 1948 Olympics. Another pair of a parent and ward duo earning Olympic distinction is Vece Paes and tennis star Leander Paes, who recently played in his 7th Olympics in Rio, earning an exalted place in India’s sporting history. Vece was member of the Indian bronze-medal hockey team in the 1972 Munich Olympics while Leander won the bronze medal in the men’s singles at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
Also standing on the pedestal is Neville de Souza, who remains the only Indian and Asian to score a hat-trick in the Olympics, achieving the feat against Australia, the hosts of the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne. Will this piece of Goan history ever be repeated again? I doubt so. If the Anglo-Indians were prominent in Bengal, so were Goans in Bombay. The Lusitanians was made up of mostly Goans, and players like Lawrie, Walter, Reginald and Maxie wore Lusitanians colours.
Founder-secretary of Goan Sports, Aniceto Fernandes, was also responsible in giving men’s and women’s hockey a push in Goa, as he remotely-controlled both associations from Bombay. His influence also extended to football. I remember the time when the hockey players in Goa wanted to take over the women’s association and they had approached Herculano Dourado, a former MLA. Dourado, an advocate and a sportsman, eventually became the President of the Goa Hockey Association, but failed to bring any worthwhile change. Unfortunately, hockey never flourished in Goa. I remember watching Loretta D’Souza, the nippy goalkeeper, who made the Indian pre-Olympic team in 1980, in the camp for probables at Pune for the Moscow Olympics. I also remember the impressive football skills of Yolanda D’Souza at a tournament in Pune.
Goa is football-land, and Goa’s standing in this game at the national level is strong. The mess in cricket, from “ticket-gate” to the current crisis is sickening to say the least. Can sport be left untouched by corruption that has spread to Goa? The Modi government has initiated a task force to prepare India for the future Olympics. It seems an onerous task, given the meddling by politicians in sports bodies, which are mostly headed by non-sportspersons. The BCCI issue is a case in point. Thanks for the Lodha panel’s strictures and recommendations, the BCCI has been forced to iron out its wrinkles. I hope this strong action over the BCCI is a lesson for cleaning up the Augean stables of all sports associations.
The great American swimmer Mark Spitz recently remarked that India should hold the Olympics so as to inspire its young generation. Perhaps, Spitz doesn’t know about the scandal that followed hosting the Commonwealth Games. A senior politician, Suresh Kalmadi, was marched to jail for the skullduggery that enveloped the Games. The press reports on sports minister Vijay Goel behaviour in Rio, and his gaffe in saying Shindu and Sakshi are Rio gold-medalists deserves not only condemnation but ouster from his post in the government.
Lastly, the best example of nepotism and parochialism in our sports is the denial of renaming the Brabourne Stadium with the name of Anthony de Mello, one of India’s finest and foremost sports administrators, Anthony de Mello. The Karachi-born Goan was the brain behind the founding of the BCCI and one of the founders of the Cricket Club of India.
It is my wish, and I hope it’s the wish of all Goans, that the powers-that-be at the CCI should rename stadium as de Mello Stadium in due recognition to a man whose solely goal was to establish India as a sporting power.
(Eugene Correia is a senior journalist who worked for The Hindu and The Free Press Journal
