“If one state takes up one sport, India would be looking at 70-80 medal opportunities at the next Olympics,” Kalikesh Singh Deo, president, NRAI.
He cited Odisha’s example, how the state had adopted hockey, when the popular sport was at its lowest. The Indian men’s hockey team has now secured back-to-back Olympic medals.
Kalikesh, whose mother-henning of Indian shooting has significantly helped enhance the performance at world level, urged the corporate sector to take care of the athletes at grassroots level. For any athlete, health is paramount, and focus should be on that.
Rani Rampal, the former Indian women’s hockey team captain, concurred. She spoke about her childhood, when her father, a cart puller, struggled to arrange the next meal.
“When I started my journey as an athlete, only then I came to know about nutrition, that it is as important as training,” she said. “For an athlete, your health is everything. Our real wealth is health. The toughest time for an athlete is when he/she is sick or injured,” she added.
On International Women’s Day, Rani put out the message to make “every day a women’s day”.
Day 3 of RevSportz’s Trailblazers 3.0 Conclave started off with a session that was titled – How Is India Inc. Enabling A Healthier India? The panel moderated by Prantik Mazumdar and Gargi Raut, also had Aktivo Labs founder Gourab Mukherjee, Veeky Ganguly of Varco and Ilan Naik of Infinity Business Partners.