Open House: What steps should govt take to push India in the top-10 of medal tally at 2024 Paris Olympics? Give free education to players wards Yes the Central and respective state governments are supporting players. The governments should encourage the players by offering them more rewards prizes and monetary appreciations if they win medals in 2024 Paris Olympics. Secondly they should offer players government jobs so that the players are enthused to take maximum medals in the next Olympics. Last but not the least the governments should provide free education for wards of outstanding players. Sanjay Chawla Asking for the moon Indias performance at the Tokyo Olympics though the best of the past ones puts us in 48th place among the participating nations. It is enough to tell how much our government is doing to support players and games. To take India to the top-10 in the medal tally at the 2024 Paris Olympics is to ask for the moon. Rome was not built in a day. To make Olympian years of rigorous and scientific training is required with the best coaching techniques with the latest equipment and world-class infrastructure. Can we expect a network of AstroTurfs swimming pools gymnasiums playing grounds/courts in our villages towns and tribal areas in a couple of years from where most of our present Olympians hail? Hira Sharma Politics must be rooted out from sports bodies Both Central and state governments are not doing enough to support players and athletes. Whatever our Olympians have achieved at the Tokyo Olympics has been achieved on their own. Despite our population size we have not been able to leave an indelible mark on the international level sports. We have bagged seven medals at Tokyo Olympics but a much smaller country Jamaica has garnered four gold medals. There must be no place for any complacency as winning one gold medal is not an exceptional achievement. If India is to be among the top-10 in the medal tally at the 2024 Paris Olympics the governments will have to create a better system for the players. A considerable investment should be made in facilities coaches and talent hunts at the grassroots to promote sports culture Politics from the sports bodies of the states and the Centre must be rooted out. Sportspersons should be given good diet world-class facilities and certain other conditions so that they can hone their talent and potential properly to vie at the world stage. Sportspersons of the lower grade should not be ignored but should be supported wholeheartedly to enable them break into the top echelons of their respective disciplines. Tarsem S Bumrah There is an urgent need to invest in sports Medals won decide the supremacy of any country in the field of sports in Olympics. Indian sportspersons have shown a promise and potential in the recently concluded Olympic Games. The Central Governments initiative of Khelo India two years ago was a step in the right direction. But it takes years of toil and perspiration in preparation for a stellar performance to bring medals. Our sportspersons show all physical and mental attributes such as perseverance tenacity never say die attitude and skills which make an Olympic frame of mind. But there is a dire need to provide infrastructure of the Olympic level investment and proper incentives to the players to ensure their peak performance. Rigorous and persistent full time training including climatic acclimatisation proper nutrition and rest regular honing and testing of skills talent hunt recruiting former Olympians as coaches and sports psychologists creating world class facilities are the areas which demand state governments attention besides allocation in sports budget. We should also stretch interest in sports from school to the level of the college. Anil Khanna QUESTION With over 100 trains cancelled and a large number of people stranded in Jammu due to the farmers indefinite protest in Jalandhar shouldnt the farmers think of alternative ways to air their dissent without making the public suffer? Suggestions in not more than 200 words can be sent to amritsardesk@tribunemail.com by Thursday (August 26) Long-term strategy needed to bag medals We should not take short-term measures to increase our medal tally in Olympics but to plan long-term strategy to achieve this goal. Children from schools should be picked up for different games and given proper training and nutritious diets for healthy growth. In the early 60s then Chief Minister Punjab Partap Singh Kairon established Pandit Moti Lal Nehru School of Sports at Rai in Sonipat district with sports facilities of Olympic standard. He was a great visionary leader but afterwards we never heard of any such sports school anywhere in the country. What to ask about the sports facilities in schools now even private schools are opening up in congested residential areas. In good old days educational institutions such as Khalsa College were established with numerous grounds for games like hockey and football. Naresh Johar Corporates should contribute to sports Whatever little we have achieved in sports is due to efforts of Central and State Governments or individual players who mostly belong to poor families. Not even a single participant in such international games comes from corporate houses. Big corporate never contribute for sports except Cricket which is not an Olympic sport. They liberally donate to political parties to fight elections but never for the cause of sports. On the pattern of corporate social responsibility a similar mandatory provision should be made for corporate contribution for sports. Secondly all state governments should take a lesson from Haryana government which gives substantial amount in form of cash rewards for winners of national and international games. This is a great incentive to athletes coming from poor families. It is rightly quoted in an article in the Tribune that Indian sport is powered by the poor. Haryana government provided such facilities to sportspersons. See the results 24 per cent of countrys athletes in Tokyo Olympic were from Haryana whose population is just 2.1 percent of countrys population. Harsh Johar Maintain existing infrastructure Sports came naturally to the Punjabi youth. The government has been formulating various schemes such as Khelo Punjab etc. but they failed to yield desired results. In November 2011 in the run up to the 2012 Assembly elections the then deputy CM had laid foundation stone of International-level sports stadium just adjacent to Anand Amrit Park at Ranjit Avenue Amritsar. In the last 10 years the site has deteriorated to a garbage dump and no one in the government is ashamed of it. The governments have altogether different priorities and development of sports and sports persons is only up to the level of lip service. Priorities of governance must change. However individual sportspersons will continue to shine despite lack of support. Abhiraj Singh Bajwa Emulate initiatives taken by Odisha govt No doubt we have done well at the Tokyo Olympics but we can do much better if we emulate Odisha Government like initiatives at state and national levels. Tokyo has seen India score its biggest ever medal haul of 7 but rank only 48 in the overall tally. To great extent excellent performances of Indian hockey men and women is due to Odisha Government which had set up excellent sporting infrastructure in Bhubaneswar where top tournaments were held and national teams were sponsored by it. When it comes to hockey the focus has been on the performance of mens team which in the last few decades couldnt find any place in Olympics. However their 2020 Tokyo Olympic performance which led to the end of over four decades of drought is praiseworthy. Indian women hockey teams accomplishment of reaching the Olympic semifinals for the first time by defeating Australia is an important one in its journey. LJS Panesar Real talent exits in small towns India had to wait for over four decades to win an Olympic medal in hockey in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Neeraj Chopra made the nation proud by winning the first gold medal in javelin throw. There are many others in the Indian contingent who did their best to keep the countrys standard high. Yet what took so long for the country to bag an Olympic medal in hockey? Though the government knows how to welcome them back home after their remarkable win in the Olympics India obviously lacks the infrastructure to groom budding talent in different sports. The little that is available in the name of facilities is exclusive to metropolitan cities though a majority of the countrys sporting talent exists in small towns and rural areas. Shaheen P Parshad PPP reason for good performance India capped off its best-ever performance in the Olympics 2020 with a haul of seven medals including a gold. Indian Mens hockey team finally ended their quest to earn an Olympic medal in Tokyo as the young side claimed a bronze medal defeating Germany in a tense battle. The manner in which the players carried themselves on the pitch shows us that the best of Indian hockey is yet to come. Public/private partnership is responsible for Indias seven medals and Indias medal quest was supported by corporates. The Target Olympic Podium Scheme or TOPS was launched in 2014 under the aegis of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. Parampreet Kaur Create better facilities in the country The best-ever performance by India at this years Olympics show that the government has provided good facilities this year vis-a-vis previous years. But the fact is that Neeraj Chopra had to train overseas to win the gold medal in Javelin throw. It is a good thing that the government has invested heavily in his training by providing monetary support. If all these facilities are created in our home country many more athletes will be able to benefit from it. There was a provision of creating an athletics track in the GNDU but it could not see the light of day ultimately affecting the players performance. Jatinderpal Singh Batth Tap raw talent in rural areas Much has been said and printed on the unprecedented achievements of our players and athletes women and men who represented India at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics concluded recently. They are getting heros welcome and a red carpet reception everywhere. Fine. They earned it. They deserve it. However it cannot be gainsaid that by and large the sports culture as such is totally absent in our country. You hardly ever see a Hockey or Football ground abuzz with players. There are no inter- class or inter-school matches. Javelin and discus are foreign to our boys. Only some highly informed parents groom their wards for individual sports. Regarding governments they aspire after medals but usually without a matching economic support. In this connection much can be learnt from the Odisha Government which had taken up the responsibility of training feeding and housing our mens Hockey team. The results are before us. A similar policy should be visible in other states too if better performance and more medals are expected at Paris only three years away. All boils down to more grounds more tracks more coaches and more recognition. Universities and colleges such as GNDU Khalsa College Amritsar and DAV Jalandhar are replete with talent. Mohan Singh

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