India’s first ever individual Olympic gold medalist yesterday seized the rare chance to edit a major newspaper by lashing out at the country’s sports officials and coaches.
Abhinav Bindra, who took gold at the Beijing Olympics by winning the 10m Air Rifle title, said there was “no magic solution” to make the underperforming country a sporting power.
“Indian athletes have no respect for most officials,” the bespectacled 26-year-old told the Times of India, a leading national broadsheet that invited the shooter to edit yesterday’s edition.
“They have to be on good terms with officials because one needs to survive. But most officials, and many of the so-called coaches who travel with the teams, know nothing about the sport,” Bindra said.
“The athletes don’t talk about this because their careers are at stake. And the officials unfortunately don’t care,” he said.
Bindra said he had to pay for his own ticket to Beijing from his shooting base in Germany because the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) refused to cough up.
“Though part of the expense of my training in Germany was funded by the government, the IOA refused to give me a ticket from Germany to China,” he said. “They said I had to first come back to India and I could get a ticket from here.”
Asked if officials had changed their attitude after his medal success, Bindra quipped: “I suddenly have many more coaches now.”
India returned from Beijing with their best ever haul of a gold and two bronze medals, but Bindra was emphatic the tally would not hit double figures at the London Games in 2012.
“If we want to get to double digits, we need to target 2016 and start working from today,” he said. “But the respective federations have no vision and I don’t see that changing. I wish I had a magic solution, but unfortunately I don’t. The IOA has to play a role in building athletes. It does nothing.”
Bindra also took a swipe at the country’s cricket-obsessed media, saying Olympic sports did not get the publicity they deserved.
“Why not just rename the sports pages ‘cricket pages’?” he asked.
“In Australia, other sports like rugby are given as much importance as cricket, and Australia is a great cricketing nation. Now that we have done well in them, we should not forget Olympic sports. The media has a responsibility to write about them,” Bindra said.
Before Beijing, India had won just four individual medals — a silver and three bronzes — and eight field hockey golds.
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