India's only individual Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra praised the Indian government for initiating schemes to bring in expert coaches for Indian sportspersons, but on pointed out that funding needs to go right down to the grassroots
Abhinav Bindra (left) with Bajaj Auto's managing director, Rajiv Bajaj at a city hotel yesterday. Pic/Bipin Kokate
India's only individual Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra praised the Indian government for initiating schemes to bring in expert coaches for Indian sportspersons, but on pointed out that funding needs to go right down to the grassroots.
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"I think the government of India is doing a good job giving funds and training to our leading athletes. But those funds need to infiltrate down to the grassroot level," said Bindra at a city hotel here yesterday, while speaking at 'Invincible Indians', a campaign organised by Bajaj Motorcycles to recognise common people for their selfless acts to society.
"We have adequate number of coaches in shooting. We need to empower our coaches and get them exposed to the best techniques in the world and get them to be on par with advances that have been made in the world of sports, sports science and sports medicine. We Indians can make great coaches, except that we need a little bit more exposure and need to set frameworks in place," said 34-year-old shooter.
Bindra also wanted other sports to be treated like cricket. "Cricket is a religion and will continue to be one. That does not mean we can't have other religions. The thing is we lack strong grassroot programmes, where young people are encouraged and are given adequate facilities.
"When we set a strong grassroot programme, only then only we will be able to get the success that we aspire to get," he concluded.
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