Interesting facts about elite athletes’ funding & support

Express News Service

CHENNAI: With less than six weeks to go for the Tokyo Olympics, top Indian athletes are putting final touches to their preparations. It has been quite a year with restrictions all around the world hampering participation and preparation, but somehow the training of our athletes, except for a brief period during complete lockdown, had been quite regular at various Sports Authority of India centres.

The funding, especially for the elite athletes, has been unhindered. At times, they have processed within hours of submission of proposals. According to information on the SAI website and other sources, some of our elite sportspersons have incurred expenditure in crores during the last Olympic cycle.

Take for instance the four badminton players who qualified for the Olympics. Their spending under Annual Calendar for Training and Competition (ACTC) and Target Olympics Podium (TOP) Scheme has crossed the Rs 3 crore-mark each. In fact, Rio Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu heads the list of athletes to have incurred the maximum expenses during the last Olympic cycle.

For her training, competitions, personal coach, support staff, etc., the amount is Rs 3.82 crore (Rs 3.41 crore ACTC and Rs 41.5 lakh under TOP Scheme). This includes the fee for foreign coach Park Tae Sang of $7000 under ACTC. She entered in about 69 competitions.

Similarly, the expenditure for doubles pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy is over Rs 3 crore. B Sai Praneeth is around Rs 3.38 crore. All of them have played around 60-65 competitions under ACTC. Singles foreign coach Agus Dwi Santoso’s salary is $7000 under ACTC. Doubles coach Mathias Boe’s salary is under TOP Scheme. The expenses are beside that of other shuttlers like Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth, who had been trying to qualify and were part of TOP Scheme.  

Interestingly, for some elite shooters, the funding has been between Rs 1 crore to Rs 1.5 crore each. Youngster Manu Bhaker needed funds to buy a Pardini sports pistol and ammunitions while Anjum Moudgil needed funds to buy electronic scoring system. Shooters Elavenil Valarivan and Apurvi Chandela did not need any funding under TOP Scheme other than the Rs 50,000 per month out of pocket allowance.

In the case of Mirabai Chanu, her rehabilitation programme and training in the US last year and now would cost more that Rs 1.3 crore under TOP Scheme. Her ACTC funding is around  Rs 99 lakh, and that includes some six competitions abroad. The SAI cleared her proposal to train in the US within six hours to avoid any inconvenience ar­ising out of impending restrictions for those flying from India due to rising Covid cases. Her injury rehabilitation was with Dr Horschig at St. Louis, US.

Even in the case of wrestlers Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat, the TOP Scheme funding is around Rs 1.47 crore and Rs 1.29 crore and is two to three times more than ACTC. Overall, Bajrang’s expenditure is around Rs 2.06 crore and Vinesh’s is Rs 1.81 crore. Besides funding, the SAI had apparently helped Vinesh renew her passport in Hungary.

Javelin ace Neeraj Chopra, one of the medal hopes in Tokyo, is perhaps the only one from athletics to have spent more than a crore. From hiring bio-mechanic expert and coach Bartoneitz Klaus, exposure trips, purchasing recovery and strengthening equipment and rehabilitation, the expenses incurred in the last Olympic cycle is a shade more than Rs 1.61 crore.

Usually ACTC takes care of most of the training and competition, including exposure trips and is drawn up by National sports federations (NSFs). Most of the athletics teams are funded through ACTC and despite some elite athletes being part of the TOP Scheme, apart from pocket money, nothing much has been sanctioned under latter.