Olympics and India

India had won six medals in the last London Olympics. We won just two bronze at Rio. It was expected that they would win more this time around. Most countries have grown steadily in their medal tallies over the years before reaching stagnation.
There have been tweets and counter-tweets. People have blamed the sports authorities. There have been controversies on doping. Some people have criticized us for not creating good athletes in a country of 1.20 billion people.
The fact is that there is nobody to take responsibility. The sports ministry does not have targets. There is no organised planning and we have no clue to win an Olympic medal. Whatever financial resources are available are not channelized properly. We don’t know how to go about a sport. We don’t know how to pick talented athletes. We don’t know how to pick managers and trainers. Whatever we have achieved are mostly individual efforts.
Small backward countries including Kenya and Jamaica are creating legends. Korea, Japan and most small European countries produce winners consistently.
We have a vast country with varied climate and skins of all colors and fitness of all sorts. The north-east has stiff competitors, the Haryanvis are great wrestlers. Keralites are good athletes and weight-lifters. We have no dearth of talent. The government offers lots of gifts and free-bees in terms of money and property to winners (Sakshi Malik the wrestler bronze medalist will win at least Rs Three crores and lots of awards including Khel Ratna and accolades). What is wrong is with the way we are handling these affairs. We need to convert novices into qualifiers, qualifiers into medal winners.