‘To win more Olympic medals, we need more Indians to play sport’

Abhinav Bindra

Abhinav Bindra reckons that investing in just elite athletes will not make India a sporting superpower and if the country aspires to take its medals tally to double digits in the Olympics, more people need to enter the playing arenas and sport should not be looked at from the narrow prism of high performance.

India's top athletes have been receiving tremendous financial support from the government and corporate houses, of late, and the results have only got better as elite athletes get to train abroad and they now work with best support staff.

Also Read: 'Men in Blue' eye their third win against Aussies

Bindra said the investment in just top level athletes will not suffice. "If you want to get to 50 [Olympic medals], it's not just going to be pumping money into the elite [athletes]. It is only going to be a very small percentage of your population that's going to get involved in sports, so you need more people to play," Bindra said during the RCB Innovation Lab Leaders Meet here on Thursday.

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever