NEW DELHI, Aug 27: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said India needs to expand its participation in Olympic sports to improve its medal tally, noting that the country currently competes in only about half of the disciplines on the Games programme.
Addressing athletes, students and volunteers virtually during the Khelo India Dialogue, Modi said India’s sporting vision should go beyond winning medals and focus on making sports an integral part of nation-building.
“In the Olympics, there are so many different sports... Indian teams don't even participate in half of them,” Modi said, describing it as a “bitter truth”.
At the 2024 Paris Olympics, India participated in 16 of the 32 sports included in the Games programme.
Modi said India misses out on opportunities to compete for a significant share of the available medals because it does not participate in several disciplines.
“Other countries of the world win medals in those sports, and we don't even participate in them. To increase our medal tally, we will have to master these sports as well,” he said.
The Prime Minister also recalled his Independence Day announcement of a nationwide talent hunt for children aged 5 to 15 years to identify and nurture sporting talent and increase India’s participation at future Olympics.
Modi said his vision for sports was not limited to medal-winning but aimed at bringing together India’s sporting potential and its youth power in the larger goal of building a developed India.
He said greater participation, identification of talent at an early age and sustained support for athletes would be crucial to strengthening India’s performance on the global sporting stage.
