Need to widen talent base to become a rowing power: Ismail Baig

Every Asian Games we talk about this and then forget it” — Indian rowing’s national head coach Ismail Baig said with a wry laugh. The subject matter was China’s continuing dominance in rowing while India and the rest battle for the second best position.


In Hangzhou on Sunday, the first day of medal events, China made it 6/6 events to lead the medal standings at the Fuyang Water Sports Centre.

Hong Kong occupied the second spot with their lone medal of the day — gold in the men's pairs, in which the hosts didn’t field a team.

Uzbekistan were third with three silver and a bronze while India were fourth with two silver and a bronze.

“We need more talent. Right now we are depending on Arjun (Lal Jat) and Arvind (Singh). We need ten more Arjuns and ten more Arvinds,” Baig said when asked about closing the gap on continental powerhouse China.

The Dronacharya awardee said that the only way to widen the rowing base was to create more facilities, which meant investing a lot of money.

“We need more facilities. We need to establish 10-12 centres across the country,” he said.

“Private (clubs) can’t do it. At the moment only the government and Army have the facilities. If we can have centres in north and south (India), we can have more players, which will increase the competition.”

The biggest stumbling block then is the nature of the sport itself.

“Unfortunately it is not a popular sport in our country, and it is an expensive sport,” Baig said.

“TV and media are not interested. A two-kilometre race is not exciting like a T20 cricket match.

“In Europe you have to struggle to get tickets for a rowing event. There the school and club competitions are of a very high level.

“Some state governments are providing support. The Madhya Pradesh government is helping, they have a very good centre in Bhopal.

“One or two big corporates have to step in through CSR because the equipment and everything in rowing is expensive. There is a talk of Tatas helping set up a rowing academy, but we have to see.

“Essentially we need more talent. Once we do that, beating China will be easy.”