At a key NRAI function, Manu Bhaker was asked about Vaibhav Sooryavanshi — a single question that, the author says, became the only headline from the event. The exchange landed on Bhaker even though she is an Olympic medallist and, at 16, had already won a senior World Cup gold; the author went as far as to say she was perhaps a greater achiever at that age than Vaibhav Sooryavanshi.
The line of questioning is not an isolated moment. The author points to a string of blunt, narrow questions directed at India’s top athletes after Paris: PV Sindhu was asked straight after her Paris Olympics loss if she will win gold at LA 28; Satwiksairaj Rankireddy was asked if LA was next now that they lost Paris; Lakshya Sen was asked why did he lose; and Manika Batra was asked if she’d move to playing doubles having lost in singles. Those four follow-ups, the author argues, show a pattern of short-hand, binary coverage that reduces complex careers to a single headline.
“Comments or questions like this end up alienating the athlete,” the author said, framing the interrogation of Bhaker as symptomatic, not accidental. In a small fraternity where careers are fragile and public moments count for more than private work, that alienation matters: athletes who must answer reductive questions in public learn who they can expect to be judged by and who they can trust to tell the fuller story of their sport.
The problem, the author added, is partly cultural within Indian sports coverage. “For us who do multi-sports, this isn’t a nice place to be in,” the author said, arguing that a media ecosystem that repeatedly defaults to men’s cricket — and to quick, cricket-style punchlines for every other sport — discourages athletes and narrows public imagination. Journalists, the author warned, should be conscious that their choices of questions and headlines shape whether the country treats other sports as serious, long-term investments.
That consciousness is exactly what the author says is missing. “We need to set examples,” the author said, pointing to moments after major events when the same tired queries are pressed: immediate Olympic fallout reduced to medal forecasts for LA 28, podium losses framed as failure, career adjustments treated like confessions. The author also recalled past attempts to push for more on-the-ground coverage of the Olympics and Paralympics, saying sports journalists have repeatedly been stonewalled when they suggested fuller, sustained reporting from the field.
There is a clearer cost to this approach than embarrassment. When athletes perceive the media as uninterested in their sports outside tidy storylines, they withdraw; when television and print editors allocate attention in cricket-shaped chunks, sponsors and fans follow. “Will we ever become a multi-sport nation with this mentality?” the author asked, using the Bhaker episode as a test case for a broader failure of imagination.
The tension is between routine curiosity and the larger public good of growing diverse sports: a single question to Manu Bhaker after an NRAI gathering turned into a headline that, the author says, eclipsed her record and forwarded a narrative that serves neither the athlete nor the movement. The author’s final assessment was blunt: “We all lost out yesterday.”
