How can India win more medals at the Olympics?
Before we can think about improving our performance in the Olympics, we must first think about the current problems and how we can solve them to make our foundations strong. So we will have a close look at some of our current problems.
1) Superstitious beliefs
Traditionally, in our country, women were not supported to play sports. Only men were supported to do the sports, and we can still see these superstitions in our villages and some urban areas. And since women are almost 50% of our population, we can say that 50% of our possible sportsmen are not supported to play, which drastically hampers our participation in sports.
2) Poverty
Poverty is still a major issue among the majority of the Indian population. Our country is among the countries whose per capita income is low. For example, our per capita income is roughly $2000 while the USA's is $66000. Due to this majority of our population focuses on earning money and getting stable life by either becoming an engineer or a doctor or any other proven career path. Also, parents avoid their children sending in sports since they think sports are not a money-making career that can give their children a stable life.
3) Poor Infrastructure
Many people in our country want to play sports, but they cannot enhance their skills due to the lack of sports infrastructure. Even if some infrastructure is there, they can't afford it. Also, there is no guarantee of employment if they fail in their sporting career.
4) Corruption
It is a major issue that we are all aware of in our country. The biggest example of this was the commonwealth games of 2010. In recent times, we have seen that there is no new news about sports corruption, which is a good thing for our country.
5) Sporting Culture
In India, the majority of the people focus only on cricket, and they don't think that other sports are important. We don't even have a proper fitness culture in our country. Whereas if we go to the US and European countries, we can see an excellent sporting culture.
Now let’s see what steps the current government is taking to improve the quality of sports in our country.
1) Increased government spending on Sporting activities
The government is constantly increasing the sports budget. For instance, in 2016 -17, our sports budget was 1400 crore rupees, and in 2019-20, the sports budget was increased to 2826 crore rupees.
2) Khelo India Youth Games
This mission is especially for girls, school children, and youth in the college. It comprises of under-17 years school students and under-21 college students. Training from the school level is essential for an international level sportsperson. Khelo India Youth Games are held annually in January or February and have national-level multidisciplinary games. Every year best 1,000 kids are given an annual scholarship of ₹ 5 lakh (US$7,000) for 8 years to prepare them for international sporting events.
3) Target Olympics Podium Scheme
The Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) is a flagship program of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, an attempt to assist India’s top athletes.
Its objective is to identify and support potential medal prospects for Tokyo 2020, 2024 Paris Olympics, and 2028 Los Angeles Olympics Games. Under the scheme, the selected athletes are provided financial assistance, and world-class level training is undertaken at the respective institutes. For example, out of 127 of our total athletes send to Tokyo 2020 this year, most of them were from the TOPS program.
These sports institutes have world-class facilities and other necessary things like proper equipment, diet, etc. This is done to improve their performance in the medals tally for the country.
4) Initiatives by the Sports Authority of India ( SAI )
The Sports Authority of India (SAI) is India's apex national sports body, established in 1982 by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports of the Government of India for the development of sport in India.
SAI has 2 Sports Academic institutions that research sports science and run certificate to Ph.D. level courses in physical education and sports medicine. Developing sports science is very crucial for the growth of high-performance athletes in India.
Also, there are 20 "Centre of Excellence" to train adult sportsmen for international events like Olympics, commonwealth games, and world cups, 56 "Sports Training Centers" (STC) to make it possible for the Central Government and State Governments to work together to nurture junior sports talent who had attained excellence at a young age(12-18) and induct them into the Centers of Excellence, for further in-depth coaching.
20 Special Area Games (SAG) are designed to identify and train sportspersons from the communities in the tribal, rural, hilly, and coastal regions of the country who exhibit a natural physical aptitude for sporting events.
Now let's see how we can further improve our performance in Olympics.
1) Indians need role models to attract a large pool of talent in sports. With the latest Olympics, we have created some the role models like Neeraj Chopra, PV Sindhu, and many others. It’s our duty to make them our Heros. These role models can further attract many bright sportsmen into sports. Rather than just focusing only on cricket, we must focus on other sporting events played widely in the world. I think this change is slowly taking place in our country.
2) We must implement the Haryana sports model all over India. For instance, out of the 127 athletes we send to Tokyo this year, 37 alone were from Haryana. At the same time, Haryana’s population is just 2.2 % of the entire population of India. Also, out of the 6 individual medals won at Tokyo 2020, 3 were from Haryana. Most notably, our golden boy Neeraj Chopra is also from Haryana. So what Haryana does differently than other states? First, they spend more money as compared to other states. For example, the GDP of Uttar Pradesh is 20 lakh crore rupees, but their sports budget is only 255 crore rupees. Whereas Haryana’s
GDP is only 9 lakh crore rupees, but they spend a whopping 400 crore rupees. Not just money, but the people of Haryana are very active in sports and do a lot of hard work to excel in sports. The Government of Haryana also gives cash rewards to the winners of medals in the Olympics. So here we have to follow up 3P model ( Protsahan, Parishram, and Puraskar). We have to develop a sporting culture like Haryana all over India.
India only focuses on a few of the events in the Olympics where the chances of winning medals are meager, and the competition is very high. 3) Another place where we can work is by focusing on the events which offer maximum medals. For example, in Tokyo 2020, 339 gold medals were divided into 39 sporting events.
India does not focus on athletics, aquatics, gymnastics, and cycling. The chances of winning medals are very high in these events. In the past US and Russia continuously focused on these 4 major events, and now China is following them to get more medals. By focusing on these major events, India can definitely win more gold medals at the Olympics.
I hope that by taking proper actions on the current problems, by bringing more reforms in the sports sector, and by implementing the Haryana model and increasing sports culture all over our country, India can definitely win more medals and can also come in the top 10 countries in the future Olympics.
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