Behind the quest for an Olympic gold

How aspiring Olympians are sweating it out to go where only a few Indians have gone before

Published: Jun 1, 2019

One of India’s biggest sprint talents, Dutee Chand fought and won a hard battle after being re

Image by : Noah Seelam / AFP / Getty Images

1/9

One of India’s biggest sprint talents, Dutee Chand fought and won a hard battle after being rendered ineligible to compete as a female athlete due to the hyperandrogenism policy of the world athletics body. In a bid to qualify for the 2020 Olympics, India’s current 100 m national record-holder has tied up with the IMG Academy in Florida, where she plans to spend two months to overhaul her technique.

The Bhiwani Boxing Club in Haryana is a trailblazing institute that has consistently spawned interna

Image by : Madhu Kapparath

2/9

The Bhiwani Boxing Club in Haryana is a trailblazing institute that has consistently spawned international boxers of the likes of Vijendar Singh and Akhil Kumar. Set up in 2003 by its coach and founder Jagdish Singh, the club’s 12 women boxers are currently at the Sports Authority of India’s national camp in Delhi. “We plant the seeds and nurture them only to see them carried away by a whirlwind eventually,” says Singh.

PT Usha missed an Olympic medal by one hundredth of a second in 400 m hurdles in Los Angeles in 1984

Image by : Arjun Suresh for Forbes India

3/9

PT Usha missed an Olympic medal by one hundredth of a second in 400 m hurdles in Los Angeles in 1984. No Indian has come closer to winning an Olympic medal in track and field since. Usha became a coach and set up the Usha School of Athletics in Kerala in 2002, with the aim of winning India an Olympic medal. “My school has already produced Olympians like Tintu Luka and Jisna Mathew. But I have had to mould them,” she says. “I am quite hopeful about some of the youngest girls in the academy right now.”

The Indian team’s shotgun coach, former Olympian Mansher Singh (behind), is at the Dr Karni Si

Image by : Amit Verma

4/9

The Indian team’s shotgun coach, former Olympian Mansher Singh (behind), is at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range in Delhi on most mornings, keeping a sharp eye on the performance of the trap shooting team. He picks both Kynan Chenai and Prithviraj Tondaiman as bright prospects for winning the Olympic quota.

Olympian Jude Felix, coach of the junior hockey national team since 2017, is confident that India wi

Image by : Selvaprakash Lakshmanan for Forbes India

5/9

Olympian Jude Felix, coach of the junior hockey national team since 2017, is confident that India will qualify for the 2020 Games. The players are pushing for a place in the team, and eight of them have also been with the senior camp, of which five have gone on to play for India in the last two years, a record of sorts. Of the nine gold medals India has won in the Olympics so far, eight have been for hockey.

Mary Kom is the only woman to have won the World Amateur Boxing Chamionship a record six times, and

Image by : Madhu Kapparath

6/9

Mary Kom is the only woman to have won the World Amateur Boxing Chamionship a record six times, and the only woman to have won a medal in each of the seven World Championships. Kom won bronze at the 2012 Olympics, and is now dreaming of gold at the 2020 Games, for which she is training hard at the Indira Gandhi Arena in Delhi. Fondly called India’s ‘Iron Lady’, she, too, feels tired on some days, especially after an arduous session of physio, she says.

Jeremy Lalrinninga scripted history by winning India’s maiden gold at the 2018 Youth Olympics

Image by : Deepak Sansta for Forbes India

7/9

Jeremy Lalrinninga scripted history by winning India’s maiden gold at the 2018 Youth Olympics in men’s 62 kg weightlifting in Buenos Aires. Training at the Sports Authority of India’s high-altitude facility at Shilaroo in Himachal Pradesh, Lalrinninga has only one target—the 2020 Tokyo Games.

Weightlifter Karnam Malleswari, the first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal, moved to Yamunanagar

Image by : Madhu Kapparath

8/9

Weightlifter Karnam Malleswari, the first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal, moved to Yamunanagar in Haryana after marrying fellow lifter Rajesh Tyagi. She’s building a `22-crore facility on two acres, from ground up. When it opens in May 2020, the world-class infrastructure and coaching lab will aim to produce Olympic medallists, an ambition she has nursed over decades while working as chief general manager at Food Corporation of India.

Training in India was always a Plan B for Abhinav Bindra who became the first and only Indian to win

Image by : Mexy Xavier

9/9

Training in India was always a Plan B for Abhinav Bindra who became the first and only Indian to win an individual gold in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. After retiring from shooting, Bindra decided to set it right and make training in India a Plan A for athletes. He has set up state-of-the-art, high-performance training centres with cutting-edge infrastructure in multiple places, including Mohali and Pune.