Telangana sports conclave: Gagan Narang roots for grooming talent at grassroots level; Anju Bobby George wants all schools to have playgrounds

Hyderabad: Former Olympians Gagan Narang and Anju Bobby George on Saturday stressed that focusing on “grassroots level and infrastructure is key to make India a sporting nation”.

Speaking at a panel discussion, moderated by Charu Sharma at the Sports Conclave, the former marksman felt that “the country is on the cusp of a sporting revolution but needs to tread the path carefully”.

“Having been the chef-de-mission of the Indian contingent in Paris Games, I saw very closely how teams and countries prepared for the Olympics. Often grassroots is the most neglected subject. If we focus only on elite athletes, who will work on unearthing the talent. Working with grassroots and elite athletes has a different mindset,” Gagan, who won a bronze medal at the London Olympics in 2012, said.

Anju, who won a bronze medal in long jump at the 2003 World Championships at Paris, reckoned that tapping talent from schools should be the priority. “School is the place where one should look first. But the biggest challenge is most of the schools do not have playgrounds. Kids needed to be provided with facilities. Every school must have a ground and I feel that making sports a part of the curriculum is the way to go,” the 48-year-old star from Kerala said.

Gagan also said that most of the athletes who won medals for the country have come from small centres. “If you look at the medal winners from Paris Olympics like Saurabh Chaudhary or other athletes, they have come from small centres with proper coaching. We need infrastructure, we need the right kind of people at the right place to nurture talent. And if we can use 60% of the infrastructure that we have, we can achieve success,” he added.

“For athletics, we don't need big stadia. We need a track and proper coaching facilities. If we can have a coach who can nurture and nourish the athlete without injuries, they can go much ahead in their career," added Anju. However, lack of high-performance coaches and exposure to them are the biggest hindrances. “We have coaches who can identify and nurture athletes. But we lack coaches who can make the athlete win medals at the Olympics or at the highest level. There is no exposure to the coaches,” explained Anju, who also participated in the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.

Meanwhile, Sumit Pandey, the COO of Dream Sports Foundation and Tathagata Mukherjee, the COO of Inspire Institute of Sports, said that corporates have a crucial role to play. “While corporates are doing a bit with CSR already, we need private players to play a bigger role in establishing infrastructure at the lower strata,” Sumit added.

Gagan, meanwhile, batted for new PPP model — policy, programme and performance — to produce champions. “So, if we are able to build this PPP, then the other PPP (public, private partnership) I think will not be a challenge because the governance structure is in place. Credibility is in place. And, the performance is eventually going to come. I think this could be the first state that could implement PPP that's necessary," Gagan concluded.