Indian sports legend Leander Paes chose the Trailblazers 2.0 platform on Thursday to reveal ambitious plans of reaching sport to 250 million Indian children in the next 15 years. “Sport is a great way to celebrate life,” he said, recounting his own journey in the world of sport encompassing street football and street cricket in Kolkata to the top echelons of world tennis.
“I want to ensure that sport is not just an opportunity for a small section of the Indian population,” he said. The man who broke a long drought of Olympic medals by winning men’s singles tennis bronze in the 1996 Atlanta Games stated that he would use his father Dr. Vece Paes’ diverse experience of six decades and his own experience of 40 years in the project.
“Growing up as a Calcutta boy, I had not dreamt of playing Wimbledon. However, I dreamt of playing for the flag in an individual sport,” Leander Paes said after sending the audience into peals of laughter when he recounted how his hockey-playing father and basketball-playing mother had conceived him during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. “I was conceived on the podium.”
Shrachi Group Managing Director Rahul Todi spoke of how he was a student in Australia when Leander Paes gave him (and all other Indians) a moment to remember when he won that Olympic Games medal in 1996. He said Shrachi Group was proud to partner Leander Paes in his new journey of spreading the message of sport and making it available.
There could have been no better way to end a long but exhilarating and, more importantly, invigorating proceedings on the opening day of Trailblazers than with the Leander Paes talking about fireside chat on The Art of Winning.