More than two months after India’s contingent returned with six medals from the 2024 Paris Olympics, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) formally expressed the nation’s ambition to host the 2036 Games by submitting a ‘Letter of Intent’ to the International Olympic Committee (IOC). With 12 years to prepare, India and its athletes have ample opportunity to continue their upward trajectory in global sports, but PR Sreejesh, a two-time Olympic medalist, believes that hosting the Games alone is not enough. Sreejesh, who secured a bronze medal with the Indian hockey team at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and followed it up with another one in Paris earlier this year, asserts that India must first bolster its medal tally to justify the honour of hosting an event as big as the Olympics.
After achieving a record-breaking haul of seven medals at the Tokyo Olympics, expectations were high for the 117-member Indian contingent to surpass that milestone in Paris. Yet, the final count fell short, with six medals – one less than three years ago. The disappointment was compounded by six fourth-place finishes and the absence of a gold medal, a sore point that will linger for some time. Speaking at the 2024 Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, Sreejesh emphasised the need for India to deliver a strong performance if the Olympics were to grace the Indian shores.
“Financially and technically, we are capable of hosting an international event like Olympics. But the question is how is it going to be? How it’s going to benefit our athletes? How many medals are we going to win? Are we capable of participating in each event? These are the questions that are raised. Because we do participate in events. Nowadays, we are dreaming about winning more medals. Individual medals. Hockey is one of the events where we expect to win, shooting another. Wrestling, boxing badminton as well,” Sreejesh, a star attraction alongside bronze medal winner Swapnil Kusale, and gold medallist at the 2024 Paralympics, Sumit Antil, said at the HTLS 2024.
“But what about gymnastics and swimming, which have more events and more medals? Even if we are hosting the 2036 Olympics, how many medals are we expecting? Are we covering these areas? Because hosting Olympic Games could be easy, but winning a medal is going to be a tougher task for us. We need to think about this aspect before we are stepping in. If we are hosting but then struggle to get into double digits, then it’s going to be real tough. Playing the Olympics itself is great pressure. These two guys [Swapnil Kusale and Sumit Antil] definitely know about that. To play it in front of your own people will require a lot of effort, and you need to dream bigger.”
Sreejesh opened up on his iconic goalpost celebration from the Tokyo Olympics 2021, which he reprised in Paris after the Indian hockey team secured bronze, marking back-to-back Olympic medals for the team. Sharing his journey into hockey, Sreejesh revealed that his athletic pursuits began with basketball, volleyball, and even football. Football was a natural choice, given its immense popularity in his home state of Kerala – a detail he cleverly used to underscore his next point.
Identify region-wise sports in India: PR Sreejesh
In a diverse country like India, where each state boasts its own array of sports, Sreejesh highlighted the importance of adopting a region-specific approach – an art China has perfected. He insisted on the need to raise awareness among parents and educate them about the potential of sports as more than just a hobby. When recognised and nurtured properly, sports can pave the way for illustrious careers. With these changes, Sreejesh believes India has the potential to emerge as a global sporting superpower.
“You need to find out talents from the very beginning at a small age. And we need to categorize players. In some way, we can follow China because of the way they test the genes, how they categorize their kids into different sports. If they find out that the kid is going to grow more than 6ft, they’re pushing them to play volleyball or basketball. If they’re not tall, they then guide them into some other sport. So that’s one of the things. Second thing is region-wise categories. As I mentioned, Kerala is quite familiar for football. So the agility that the players have is different than any other part. When it comes to hockey, Punjab is a hub for hockey,” he said.
“We can focus on regions. Which sport is familiar where and we can push them. And finally, there is education. We need to start this sporting culture, at the school level, and spread it to the families. That’s one thing I always feel we are lacking a lot because I have never seen our parents doing any sporting activity. So it’s quite hard to start from scratch. We need to educate the family that sports is not a bad thing.”
