Plan for India's sporting glory

There are no words to express the happiness at the unprecedented success Neeraj Chopra has achieved at Tokyo Olympics. The entire country is basking in his glory and why not.When one's child achieves such a stupendous success on a global arena, it brings joy to the parents, the family and the nation. Neeraj Chopra's victory has once again proved that if one has the support of family who keep motivating one to pursue one's passion, then living up to the nation's expectations is not difficult.

It is also important to remember how much effort a player must put in to win an award whatever its colour be. Neeraj started climbing to glory from 2016 by when he had become a heartthrob of the country by winning a gold medal at the World U-20 Athletics Championships. It was for the first time an Indian won a gold medal in an Athletics World Championships. His gold medal-winning performances continued in Asian Athletics Championships 2017, Commonwealth Games 2018, and Asian Games 2018.

Finally, in Tokyo the 23-year-old farmer's son from Khandra village near Panipat in Haryana stunned the world and emerged as gold winner, ending India's century-old wait for a track and field medal in Olympics. The country too has started recognising his hard work and rewards have started pouring in.

One significant thing that needs to be noticed is that most of the medal winners are from the rural background. This should be an eyeopener to the political executive, both at national and state levels. Its high time they stopped talking about the sports infrastructure like stadiums in major cities and towns where no sports are played or hardly any sportspersons are trained and focus attention on rural areas, identify the talent, extend full support including best of training, if need be by getting coaches from outside since India does not have coaches of international standards as yet, and see that the young teams participate in various international sports events so that they can be ready to shine in Olympics.

It is high time the Union Government revived its focus on sports in schools and reintroduces sports classes for all classes, help the educational institutions in getting necessary sports equipment as well. Instead of being practical in its approach, the central and the state governments are busy politicking and experimenting with educational system. Most of the schools do not have even playground and the concept of PT (physical training) and moral classes has been given a go-by. Let us hope the Prime Minister would come up with his Mann Ki Baat on making drastic changes in the education system and see that it gets back its old glory, when he would address the nation from the ramparts of Red Fort on August 15.