It’s 5:05 AM and Sayed Hassan Rezay is yelling out commands in Hindi, English, and Korean. He commands a small army of fifty youngsters, guiding them through a series of powerful kicks that could knock a human out cold. The kicks, however, are controlled. Their power directed at a target. Both a literal one and a figurative one, the Olympics.
Vinay Singh sits by the sidelines. He keeps a keen eye on the training. Watching each athlete as they push their body through the rigour of the session. The fighters and the sparring mats are drenched in sweat.
Welcome to the Peace Taekwondo Academy.
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Sayed Hassan Rezay was born Kabul, Afghanistan, just after of the decade-long Soviet-Afghan war. “I do not know my date of birth. But my refugee card says 1990 as year of birth”. Afghanistan was still recovering from the ravages of the war, and finding work was hard. His parents decided to take him and his two brothers, one elder and one younger, to neighbouring Iran in search of a livelihood.
Raised in Iran, Sayed started off as an avid footballer, while dabbling in cricket with fellow Afghan refugees. Taekwondo was never his first choice. But watching his brother train in at an academy not far away from home, Sayed began to fall in love with the martial art. Saving money from the wages he received at a shoe factory, he collected enough to buy himself his first suit.
“I just wanted to [practice] Taekwondo. I just liked the training and the discipline,” says Sayed. “I found old magazines and cut out pictures of Van Damme and Bruce Lee to put in my room.” It can take up to a year to get a green belt. “I got mine in 5 months.”
An amatuer pursuit at first, Sayed kicked off – pun intended – a serious and rigorous training as a 13-year-old under coach Master Muhammad Bashir Taraki, the national team coach at the time. “My brother told me to join the same academy. Master Bashir was tough but fair. He was an excellent teacher.” The academy was located 16 kms away from Sayed’s home; a journey he traversed on a bicycle.
His talent and penchant for hard work paid off when two years later, at the National Junior Championships he secured his first medal. “My dream was not the Olympics. It was to win at the Nationals. When I won at the Nationals, I started thinking of the Olympics.”
Sayed featured on the national team for three years before he made his mark on the international scene. He was adjudged ‘Best Fighter of the Tournament’ en route winning silver as a youth (Under 18) competitor at the Fajr Open Taekwondo Championships in Iran back in 2008; Afghanistan’s first world championship international medal at the junior level. Winning became a habit as he won more international accolades including back-to-back bronze medals at the World Championships – at Izmir, Turkey in 2008 (youth – 63 kg) and Copenhagen, Denmark (senior – 58 kg) in 2009.
Back home, Sayed was among the favourites to represent the country at the 2012 Olympic Games in London. The ANTF (Afghan National Taekwondo Federation), however, had other plans. They decided to send the heavily favoured 2008 Olympic bronze medallist, Rohullah Nikpai (68 kg), and 2010 Asian Games silver medalist Nesar Ahmad Bahave (80 kg) instead. Nikpai who created history by becoming the first Afghan to win an Olympic medal – bronze in the 58 kg category at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games – lived up to his reputation by winning the bronze in London.
It wasn’t easy for Sayed. “I respect my coaches and my seniors a lot. I felt I deserve to be in London. But it was going to be my seniors’ last Olympics. ‘You are still young’ they said. Nikpai won. So it was good.”
In reality, though, Sayed could not contain his disappointment with missing out on yet another Olympics. Despite his impressive performances in the preceding five years, he once again found himself without an Olympic berth. He found it hard to stay motivated. His achievements till then did not reap any financial rewards for him. Others, especially seniors, were driving cars, while he was still on a bicycle. Add that to the lack of national team berths at the biggest tournaments and the pressure to deliver on his potential was getting to him. “I was stressed, but I put the pressure on myself.”
The Night of the Attack
In mid-2013, Sayed was preparing for trials the upcoming World Taekwondo Championships in Mexico. He was one of the favourites going in, and with a week to go for the trials, he was peaking at the right moment.
That fateful evening in June Sayed was leaving his gym in Kabul after training at about 9 p.m. He approached his friend’s car parked in a small by-lane and saw, from the corner of his eye, two masked men wearing hooded sweatshirts on a bike. As he was loading the trunk of the car, he noticed they kept circling the bylane. Almost suddenly, one of the men stepped up to Sayed, grabbed him by the collar and flashed a gun in his face.
“He was holding the gun to my head. I thought it was a friend playing a joke. I asked him who he was. But he kept telling me to shut up!”
Sayed got uncomfortable and began to try to wean his way out of the assailant’s grip. He tripped and fell. Fearing that he was getting into attack mode, the assailant fired two shots in Sayed’s direction. Fortunately, both missed. The second assailant, however, did not. He lunged at Sayed with a knife and stabbed Sayed’s leg. By then Sayed’s friend came rushing towards the scene. The assailants fled on the bike and Sayed ran in the opposite direction for fear that they would fire again.
“I did not want to get hurt again,” recalls Sayed.
Till date, he does not know who those assailants were. He claims he maintained cordial relationships with all his taekwondo peers, and while there was the occasional misunderstanding with the administration, no one, he believes, had a reason to take him out.
This incident, however, was no matter to dust under the rug. Sayed managed to obtain CCTV footage of the attack and wrote a letter to the Afghanistan Olympic Committee and the Ministry of Home Affairs. Afghanistan, however, was still reeling from war. Between the Taliban, the American army, and all the conflict around, citizens remained harrowed in their daily lives. Life constantly hung in the balance. Expectedly sport was the least of the government’s concerns. An attack on a prominent sports star wasn’t exactly priority.
The incident was a turning point in Sayed’s career. If he stayed, he was sure “Death was waiting for me.”
“I was angry at the time. I gave my best as a fighter. But I felt my request to investigate was ignored. I was frustrated and wanted to speak with the officials. But my friend told me not too. He said I was too angry and I will say something that I would regret. I had to let it go.”
Hearing about the attack, Sayed’s brother Hussain, asked him to move to India; he could start afresh. “There is peace here” Sayed remembers his brother telling him. He took the plunge and moved.
Afghanistan refugees in India
The UNHCR in India has a little over 10,000 refugees and 3,400 asylum seekers that have fled from Afghanistan. Beginning with the Soviet invasion of Kabul in 1979, Afghani refugees have sought to build a new life in India. Registering with the UNHCR allows the refugees to get long stay visas, thus enabling them to find work and start anew.
Life, however, is still hard for them. Work is hard to come by, even with a refugee card. Landlords discriminate against, if not altogether reject, the refugees. Those without a valid refugee card – to identify themselves – live perilously; every day that they do not inadvertently run into the law is a blessing.
Sayed got a coaching job coaching at the Korean Cultural Center (KCC) through an old friend. It was a short contract – four months – for a meagre INR 10,000 per month. But it kept him afloat while he harboured dreams of an Olympic berth.
A few months later, he found the opportunity he needed to get back into the fray; the Korean Ambassador’s Kukkiwon Cup organised by the Korean Embassy. Sayed applied, was accepted and began training for the competition which was a month away. He split his training between the KCC gym, and the parks before the city awoke.
“I used what was available. I practised my kicks on trees in the gardens. I was determined to prove to the Indian fighters and to myself that I was still good,” says Sayed.
He did, and he was.
Sayed won the “Player of the Tournament” Award walking away with a grand prize; a Hyundai Eon car. As he was limping out of the stadium – he tweaked his hamstring in the Final – a short, well-dressed man, wife and daughter in tow, offered to help. He found Sayed a borrowed can of pain relieving spray, requesting a few minutes of Sayed’s time in return.
“I have an Olympic dream for my daughter. I want you to be part of that dream,” said the gentleman.
“How old is your daughter?” asked Sayed
“She is two” replied Vinay Singh.[2]
Vinay Singh
Singh, 35, hails from Dhanbad in Jharkhand.
It was near a cricket ground that he first experienced martial arts when he saw a taekwondo teacher teach the local kids. “The angles and the discipline captured me. I fell in love with it. I was older by then, so I got my 7-year old cousin enrolled.”
Money was hard to come by, so Singh had to get creative for equipment. “I used up my pocket money to train my cousin. We didn’t have pads, so we used chappals (sandals) as pads. We were up at 4 a.m. every day to practice 1000 kicks a day.”
Singh eventually moved to Delhi in 2000. “Medical ki thaiyari karni thi. (I was preparing for my medical exams). But I could not stay away from sports. I kept visiting the parks and sports arenas just to watch people play. I am drawn to the energy of sport. The sights, the sounds. Kuch tho hai.”
Singh began working for an MNC at whose annual day function he witnessed his first live demonstration of professional taekwondo. “I approached the fighter and asked him to train my cousin for the Olympics. He took a week to say yes.”
It was 2009 and Singh was married by then. “I called Sushant (a cousin) to train in Delhi. To keep him motivated I trained with him. I worked the night shift, returned home at 4 a.m., showered, changed and headed back out to train. The gym in Patel Nagar was 20km away from my place. Took me 45 minutes to get there.”
The coach, however, used Sushant as a means to make money, turning him into a coach at the US Embassy School. This upset Sushant who felt he could neither train nor study in this arrangement. He wrote back home and was immediately called back by his parents who felt Singh was ruining his cousin’s career. Singh was disappointed.
“Mera pehle se hi Olympic ka sapna raha hai. Maine apna salary aur time diya bhai ko. But because he was not my real brother, I had no control over his future. That is when I decided when I have a child I will make him or her an Olympian.”
Vanya was born in 2011, her name an ode to a great Russian basketball player who Singh admired. “I started training her in her diapers. Even taught my wife basic Korean terminology and numerals so she could repeat them to Vanya when I was not around.”
His thirst for knowledge kept growing, continually seeking the views of European, American, and East Asian trainers and athletes, both abroad and based in India. “I realised I had three choices: Ya tho accha program join karo, ya aise bandhe ke saath program shuru karo jo uss raaste pe chala ho.” (Either join a good program, or start one with someone who has walked that path.)
Singh put up a post on Facebook, sharing his intention to start an academy that would measure up to international standards. The post inadvertently brought him face to face with destiny. “Someone replied ‘you want to start something for kids, what about the established athletes? No one helps us’. Then I realised. Saina [Nehwal] and [PV] Sindhu won medals, and more people joined badminton. If I could help someone win a medal that would inspire kids to join taekwondo.”
Singh and family never missed a martial arts event in Delhi. “In 2013 I was at the Talkatora Stadium to watch the Kukkiwon Cup.”
There he saw a fighter like none he had ever seen in person before. “I knew all the Indian fighters. He didn’t look, kick and fight like any of them. Kaun hai yeh bandha jisme itna aggression, skill aur charisma tha? (Who was this guy with so much aggression, skill and charisma). I decided I had to meet him. I found him outside limping after the tournament. Jugaad se I found a spray for his injury. I told him I have an Olympic dream for my daughter. I want you to be part of that dream.”
Sayed was taken aback. He was in a new country, figuring out how he would earn, survive and continue to fight and train for an Olympic berth. Now here was a strange yet passionate man asking him to train his two-year-old daughter for the 2032 Olympics. “I told him she was too young,” says Sayed. “But he would not listen.” At the time he could not imagine taking time off from his job at KCC, lest he lost his income. “He asked me to train Vanja at least once a week. I finally said yes to that.”
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Taekwondo Origins
The birth of Taekwondo came about in the early 1950’s. Syngmann Rhee, then president of South Korea, had urged the different schools of martial arts in the country to merge their styles and create one effective, potent form of martial art. The name given was an amalgamation of three words: Tae ‘to stomp/trample’, kwon ‘fist’ and do ‘the way/discipline’.
The administrators quickly sought to organise themselves setting up the Korean Taekwondo Association (KTA) in 1959, and the International Taekwondo Federation (ITF) in 1966.
Expectedly, the two bodies did not see eye to eye on the administration and the growth of the martial art. While the ITF often gets credit for spreading the sport, it is the KTA (now renamed World Taekwondo) that attained recognition and now governs taekwondo globally.
In 1988, at the Seoul Olympics, the WT saw an opportunity to showcase the martial art as a demonstration event. 12 years later, taekwondo became one of just two Asian martial arts – the other being judo – to be included as a discipline at the Olympics.
Taekwondo in India
Taekwondo touched Indian shores in 1975. Grandmaster Jimmy Jagtiani, considered the father of Indian Taekwondo, is a 1st Dan Black Belt and was raised in Saigon, Vietnam during the Vietnam War. He studied under three grandmasters before moving to India in 1975. Back in India Jagtiani was involved in a street fight in which he knocked out four assailants by himself and consequently caught the attention of the then legendary hockey coach KD Singh Babu. Impressed with a new form of self-defense, Babu introduced Grandmaster Jagtiani to a senior ranking officer in the Lucknow police, and an officer with Railway Protection Forces (RPF). Jagtiani eventually founded the Taekwondo Federation of India (TFI) in 1976 and it received affiliation and recognition from the WT (then WTF) in 1979.
Today, however, the sport’s administration is mired in controversy. Multiple factions claim supremacy and administrative power. Warring candidates are all too eager to topple each other in quest for the seat of the President of the TFI. At the time of writing this article, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports had not listed a registered affiliate for Taekwondo on their website, while the IOC has listed the TFI with Chetan Anand as it’s President.
No surprises then, that India has yet to see one of her own compete in the Taekwondo event at the Olympics. Even at the Asian Games, an event where India often performs exceptionally well, we have just one bronze at the 2002 Busan Asian Games.
Compare that to Sayed’s Afghanistan where the sport was introduced in 1997. With just a fraction of the population of India, they have five Asian games medals, four World Championships medals – including Sayed’s two – and two Olympics medals.
Peace Taekwondo Academy
Sayed’s brother Hussain, also a black belt taekwondo fighter, had originally started the Peace Taekwondo Academy in January 2014. He received funding from the UNHCR Refugee program. “I have seen a lot of war and trouble back home,” says Sayed. “I wanted peace. That’s why I gave the academy the name. I drew the logo by hand.”
The academy was in Malviya Nagar. Sayed helped his brother set up the academy, coaching there once or twice a week while continuing to coach at the KCC, a job that had become permanent after the win at the Kukkiwon Open.
Funds were tight, both for the academy and his personal life. So Sayed sold the car he won, paid advance rent for the academy location and his room, purchased some essential equipment for the academy, bought himself a motorbike, and put the rest away for a rainy day.
Singh would travel 60 kms every Saturday to train with Sayed. “We went by metro, bus and auto, just to train with Sayed for 45 mins. I waited for Saturday every week.” His aim was simple; to have his daughter train under a world champion. “Champions have standards. They do not compromise. They have a benchmark. If you train under [Lionel] Messi, you may not become him, but you will become one of the best in the world. India ka Messi to banega.”
Sayed and Hussain, however, had no experience in running a professional academy. Gradually, Singh became part of the academy, helping them out whenever and however he could. “Taekwondo is not a priority sport in India. We are aiming for the Olympics. A basic Olympic level academy costs 30-40 lakhs to set up. And then there are monthly expenses.”
Students – especially paying ones – were hard to come by “We only wanted to work with those who had a serious vision to go to the Olympics. But that kind of drive and talent rarely comes from rich kids. We find it more in middle and lower class families.”
Dealing with parents in those early days was another task altogether. “Middle and lower class families do not have the capacity to pay. For 500 rupees a month, parents yeh chahte ke coach unke bachche ke nakun tak kaat de.” (Parents expected coaches to clip their kids’ nails)
Eventually, inexperience and the lack of funds caught up with the academy. Hussain was forced to shut it down merely five months after it opened. Sayed sold his bike and gave the money to Hussain to help him move back to Afghanistan, leaving behind a brother, a few dedicated students – including Vanya – and a distraught Singh.
The Rebirth
Sayed was at his wit’s end. The academy had shut down, and he lost his job at the KCC. “I was running out of money. I had not paid rent for two months. Then Nikhil [Tyagi] called to meet me at Select CityWalk Saket. Vinay was there also. He wanted to start the academy again. I told him I would join him if he could put money in the academy for six months at least.”
“Ashish Pandey,” remembers Singh, “was the first friend to put 40,000 rupees in my account five minutes after I asked him. That gave me the confidence that I can and will start the academy.”
Singh poured in whatever savings he had, maxed out his credit cards, borrowed from family and friends. “I even ate less food and drank less milk at home so I could cut back personal expenses.”
In November 2014, six months after it shut down, Singh revived the Peace Taekwondo Academy at the same 1200 square feet basement in Malviya Nagar where the old academy once lived. Their first batch had three fighters. “We did not want to compromise on two things: quality of training, and hard work. Olympic medal haath pe tattoo banane se nahin aayega. The athletes that win have the dream of Olympics and the spirit of their sport in their blood.”
The tagline ‘Train for Excellence’ – Singh’s idea – has a direct bearing on the quality of training at the academy. He wanted to run it professionally. “Professionalism brings results. The kind of training available [in India] at the time was not Olympic level. We could dream of a medal. But the reality is very different. Aur humein reality se dur nahin bhagna hain.” (We do not want to run away from reality).
All this traction for the PTA was around the time of the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon. India’s performance on the mat was nothing to boast off; no fighter went past the quarterfinals, and three fighters lost by a ‘gap-loss’ – a loss by such a large margin that the match is called off as there is no time for a comeback.
“I was frustrated. If our best fighters are losing by gap-point, then we have to redefine our definition best. We have to give our best the chance to beat the others. Aise to nahin chalega boss. Kuch Kejriwal type kranti karna hai.” (This mediocrity won’t work, I need to execute Kejriwal-level revolution)
Now in its new avatar and with a clear Olympics vision in place, the PTA started raking in awards in both small and big competitions across India. Seeing that the quality of training was a priority, requests for admission to the academy increased; both established and budding fighters began to look towards PTA as a way to improve and, most importantly, win.
“We were winning all these awards but had not yet registered our academy with the Federation back then. I was not sure how long the academy would last. I raised funds and put a plan in place for six months. Give it my best shot for six months.”
Part of that plan was to move the academy into a bigger space. The basement would turn into a furnace during the unforgiving Delhi summer. Kids fell sick often. But Singh’s budget was already stretched and finding a better place was proving to be difficult. That was until he chanced upon a small, single floor building in Chhatarpur.
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Peace Taekwondo Academy is about 20 minutes by foot from the Chhatarpur Metro Station. A single storey building, measuring roughly 3000 sq. ft. in space, the academy is host to about fifty fighters. Its student pool keeps fluctuating between forty to fifty fighters; the youngest fighter being six years old, and the oldest being 23.
The Academy charges INR 2,000/- p.m. for male and INR 1,000/- p.m. for female students. “I don’t see male or female when talent is concerned. However, Indian parents with daughters are usually conservative. I slashed the fees by half to encourage them to send their daughters.”
One of those daughters is Kashish Malik. Malik, 18, is among India’s brightest prospects for Olympic medal in the foreseeable future. Just this year she’s carried the tricolour high at two international tournaments; bronze at the Fujairah International Open in February and silver at the Asian Junior Championship in April.
Singh runs a tight ship at the Academy. Monthly expense ranges from INR 85,000 to 100,000 depending on activities conducted in the month. After all expenses, he is left with about INR 15,000 to pay Sayed, which just about meets Sayed’s basic needs. Singh does not make a penny yet.
As international results started to trickle in, PTA could not stay unregistered and under wraps for long. Their fighters performances, rising profile and results were undeniable. And while Sayed remains the main ingredient, Singh had another ace up his sleeve.
Scoring in taekwondo was earlier measured manually. Judges decided where and how a kick or a punch landed, and momentarily looked away to put down a score. This system of scoring was counterintuitive to the speed at which modern fighters battle. Fighters would often lose out on points for successful hits while the judges looked at their scoresheets. Realizing they needed to upgrade, WT introduced sensors in the protective gear, starting with the vest and now in the headgear. Every taekwondo Olympics hopeful has to train with sensors.
Sadly though, taekwondo competitions in India are scored manually till date. This was regressive, leaving contests susceptible to cheating, favouritism and manipulation.
Domestic competitions mattered. But Singh knew that if his fighters had to compete at the international level, he needed to purchase gear with sensors costing upwards of 2.5 lakhs. He had exhausted his sources for funding, so he turned to his students for help. A few parents offered up to a full year’s tuition up front, and one parent offered an interest-free loan of INR 70,000. Singh raised enough to buy the gear, making PTA one of just a handful of academies in India with the cutting-edge equipment.
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Singh’s office is small but comfortable. “I didn’t care about an office. I started off with a single table and power plug. My priority was the training. I had to finish setting that up first.”
He admittedly had spent more time at PTA than his corporate job. At the time of writing this story, Singh was out of a job for a month. “My company was great. My boss was great too. He gave me the freedom to work from home and run PTA as long as I did not compromise with office work. But PTA took up more time. It affected my work. So the company had to let me go. It is tough. But I am grateful for the time they were patient with me.”
Sayed had challenges as well. For reasons still unknown to him, he is often asked not to sit at the sidelines at domestic tournaments, leaving PTA’s students without the vital support of a coach. Like with most challenges, Singh has found a way around this too. “We teach our fighters to be mentally tough. To be just as competitive and perform at the highest level even if the coach is not there.”
Many Indian sports bodies have a bias against foreign coaches. This bias could not be more illogical. Most of India’s teams have foreign coaches. And while Indian coaches- like Pullela Gopichand – are slowly earning their stripes at the international level, there is wisdom in humbly accepting that maybe the ability to guide India to international medals and laurels lies with non-Indian coaches. “When our [Indian] athlete wins a medal, it is for India. Not Afghanistan,” says Singh. “We should be looking at how good and talented the coach is, not where he or she is from.”
Besides, Sayed has done everything to make his talent and wealth of knowledge accessible to the best in India. He learnt to speak both Hindi and English, spends his days understanding the Indian diet, and sits down with parents during monthly discussion panels to address their concerns. Both him and Singh know that a medal at the highest level can only come if they dive deep into the life and mind of a fighter that trains with them.
PTA is no cakewalk. Students and parents have to fill a form listing out their reasons, intentions and motivation to join the academy, followed by an interview with both Singh and Sayed. Once admitted, the training is unapologetically tough. PTA isn’t for the faint-hearted.
The academy’s obsession with excellence is both its greatest strength and biggest weakness; Student turnover is high, with many dropping out because they cannot keep up with the rigorous training regimen that Sayed has drawn up. Since the quality of fighters is high at PTA, the level of internal competition is significantly higher than one would find anywhere else in India; another big reason for dropouts.
Parents too, after watching their kids endure the training, often soften their ambitions. Just weeks after starting at the PTA, a few of them they adjust their expectations; hoping that any medal, even a domestic one, would help their child get a college admission or a government job on a sports quota, or even a coaching gig at an international school.
“There are other academies for that. Our goal is medals at the highest level. Asian Games, World Championships, Olympics.”
PTA imparts all sorts of life skills to its students with communication skills at the top of the pile. “A holistic approach is necessary to keep everyone motivated. We want them [students] to develop strong, confident personalities,” says Singh. “So that when they win medals, they can sell themselves.”
PTA also often arranges complementary programs and panel discussions, inviting professionals from both sports and other fields to either train or talk to the academy’s students and parents.
The Road Ahead
Both Singh and Sayed are clear, “We do not want branches. We want just one centre. A centre of excellence.”
They barely sleep for 3 hours a day; Singh is constantly championing the cause, pitching to potential investors and manages marketing, while Sayed hones his craft and chisels his students’ abilities. There is no time for rest. They have come a long way, and have an even longer way to go.
With the odds stacked against them, both Singh and Sayed know the enormity of the task they have cut out for themselves. “To work with an Olympic vision in a country like India is very difficult. Difficult, but not impossible.
“We do not want any of our Taekwondo family to break down because of our stories [referring to his job loss and Sayed’s past]. Our responsibility is to keep them focused on the goal: an Olympic medal.”
Taekwondo is a non-priority sport in India. Practitioners are even fewer than the human mind can imagine. This isn’t a sport where you sign up 40 kids from the locality and hope to make INR 40,000 a month. For that matter, an academy in any sport that isn’t cricket or football faces a challenge in India. An academy – like PTA – with a focus on an Olympic medal, are too few and far between; mostly funded and sponsored by patrons or corporate houses.
“Sab log kehte hain ke revenue model hona chahiye,” says Singh. “But if you pursue a revenue model at the start of an elite level academy, you will not last long. The focus is getting the basics right. High-quality training is the priority. Everything else is secondary. We started PTA despite knowing there will be no returns immediately.”
Singh hopes that an Olympic medal program – the likes of OGQ or Go Sports – a sports management company or the CSR wing of a large corporate house recognises the work PTA is doing. He believes they will not find the same kind of returns on investment [medals] anywhere else. And rightly so. The Academy has been around for a little under three years; a time in which they have not only come to dominate several domestic competitions but have won five international medals for the country. It’s a readymade setup; a professional operation, a training centre, international technology, top-level talent, a passionately driven founder and a coach who is a two-time world championship medalist. “They just need to provide us with the funds; we will get them the medals,” Singh says reassuringly.
Singh makes his case. “All of India’s recent Olympic medals have come in individual sports. Jiss sport mein potential hain, aap kam paise mein zyaada kar sakte ho. In hockey or football, the cost for one international trip is 40 lakhs. In an individual sport like taekwondo, that cost is half percent of that, two to three lakhs. The training for an individual sport is much much cheaper.”
Singh believes there is a lot of work to be done, and he wants to work parallel with the Federation. “We need a system, defined process and alignment of resources,” Singh says. He wants schools to complement a budding Olympian’s rigorous training schedule with reasonable leniency on attendance and marks. Parents, too, need to loosen their purse strings, not only to provide better nutrition and training equipment but to help coaches stay motivated.
Singh has often been encouraged to leave India. “My friends tell me all the time to go abroad to a Western country. For the passion and craze I have for sport they will treat me and reward me extremely well. But I am clear, Karna jo hai India ke liye karna hai.”
Sayed, who one would have jumped at the chance to leave India before, cannot even think of it now. “This is my dream now. I could not go to the Olympics as a fighter. But with Peace Academy, I will make an Olympian. I will achieve it.”
(This article was first published in Nation of Sport)
Edited by: Jonathan Rego, Executive Editor.
