Abhinav Bindra wishes to empower the next generation of talents

12/20/2017

Abhinav Bindra has expressed his willingness to work with the new talents who can represent India in the future at the big platforms. He has also opined that the country needs improvement in the professional support system of the athletes in order to introduce a long list of top performers.

Bindra, the 2008 Beijing gold medallist shooter, announced his retirement from the sport after the 2016 Rio Olympics, where he just missed out on a medal finishing in fourth place. After his retirement, he acted as a part of the Olympic Task Force and was assigned a role to devise a plan keeping the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in mind. And now, the 35-year-old claimed that he is ready to share his own experience with the young crop to help them achieve a good place.

"I wonder what results can be produced if we introduce and groom our most talented youngsters systematically in a scientific and professional manner. While I have achieved my dreams and have been successful in my own sporting career, I now have new dreams and wish to empower the next generation of talents in a meaningful and sustainable way," Bindra said while speaking at the launch of ELMS (Excellence in Learning and Mastering of Sports and Physical Literacy) Foundation, reported PTI.

India is generally sending huge squads for the big events but the players failed to utilize the chance which directly reflects on the medals tally which forced Bindra to bat for the professional support system of the athletes. Despite being a highly-populated country, the system has failed to produce a continuous line of top performers.

"Indian sports have come a long way. But there is still much distance to travel. Until we address and improve the overall depth of professional support of our athletes, we will not have the consistency that is needed to keep on replacing the top athletes."

"We want to develop the best minds in the world regarding the aspects of physical literacy, sports performance, administration, and management. We intend to train high-performance managers. One of the recommendations of the committee to draft the National Sports Code of which I am a member was to mandate each of the NSFs to have an HPM on its staff. The results a particular sport achieves will be directly proportional to the quality of the person who is appointed HPM,” he added.

After a major cabinet reshuffle by Prime Minister Modi, Rajyawardhan Singh Rathore became the first athlete to become the Sports Minister of the nation which gave a new hope to the Indian sports sector. Earlier, Rathore stated that he wanted to revamp the existing sporting system of the country and currently, Bindra didn’t miss the chance to highlight his support.

"The draft code is yet to be notified but I am delighted by the recent comments of the Sports Minister that this will be soon required for all federations. This will not be a moment too soon but that said we will need to train and equip these people," he said with Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore sitting by his side at the dais.

"A High Performance Manager is someone who has an intrinsic deep knowledge of sports and then oversee the whole sport in a result-oriented mindset. They are not bound to one sport and can seamlessly move and develop different sports.

"We want an individual who has gained a world perspective of sports and who can then improve our local situation here."