Prime Minister Narendra Modi: The Indian contingent started its campaign at the 33rd Olympic Games in Paris on Saturday with hopes of achieving its best-ever medal haul in the Games, surpassing the seven the country clinched in Tokyo.
On a momentous day on which ace pistol shooter Manu Bhaker made it to the final of the Women's 10m Air Pistol competition to maintain medal hopes alive, IANS caught up with Indian Olympic Association (IOA) President and legendary athlete Dr. PT Usha to find out how the scene has changed from the time she was competing. Excerpts:
IANS: How do you see the difference (support/exposure) from when you started playing as an athlete and now?
PT Usha: From my time and now there is no comparison. See somewhere other, I managed my coach to be with me. Otherwise, for me, there is no exposure at all. See if I could get 3-4 races outside of Europe, I could have won the medal. I missed the medal only because of a lack of experience and exposure. So now see last 10 years players are getting a lot of facilities.
IANS: Your thoughts on the Government support now under Prime Minister Narendra Modi?
PT Usha: The government is spending a lot of money on exposure. And foreign coaches, physios and masseurs, whatever they want they are providing it. And that is why we are getting the results.
In the Asian Games, we improved from 76 medals to 107. Now (In Paris), we are expecting more medals than in Tokyo. So now from the IOA side, whatever players need we have supported them.
IANS: Any message you want to give to Indian athletes here in Paris?
PT Usha: There is a very good team of sports science doctors with Indian athletes here. The sleep therapy and mental wellness team is with them. So now they should focus on their event and try to do their best. If they do their best, I hope that they will get more medals.
IANS: Any message you want to give to Indian athletes here in Paris?
PT Usha: The opening ceremony was good. But only the problem is this is all for players. So they should have given more importance to the players. They couldn't do that yesterday because we could see the players for 5-10 seconds only. So, that's the only change I could see. Otherwise, it was okay. And there was a lot of rain also.