India@Olympics: How Can We Ensure More Medals?

We are a nation of 1.2 billion people but when it comes to sports we lag behind others. Why is it so? Do we lack a sporting culture in this country? Is bureaucratic apathy the reason? How many times have we heard athletes complain about inadequate facilities? Wrestling has brought us medals in the last three Olympics, but what have we done to alleviate the pathetic condition under which they have to undergo their training. Recently we saw this heart-wrenching story of a group of teenagers practicing swimming in a dam in Jharkhand. The swimmers could be potential athletes representing us at the Asian Games or even the Olympics. Do we have a right to blame them if they fail to win a medal? The other moot point that often explains why we fail to produce a stream of great athletes like USA, China is due to lack of proper infrastructure and the lack of importance we attach to sports in our schools. How many parents enthusiastically support their kids if they want to pursue sports as a profession? Has the time come to make sports compulsory in school curriculum? We discuss: the steps should we take to ensure we get more medals in Tokyo Olympics in 2020.