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Beijing 2008 Olympics gold medalist Abhinav Bindra said that the three-year cycle that competitors will have before the 2024 Paris Olympics can be precarious in light of the absence of a year in which they might have recovered from the past Games.
The 2020 Tokyo Olympics got over on August 8 this year, having been delayed from last year because of the Covid-19 pandemic. This implied Tokyo 2020 is isolated from Paris 2024 by only three years, instead of the standard four-year cycle.
Indians got back from the Tokyo Games with seven medals, their best pull at a solitary version of the Olympics which included a gold for Neeraj Chopra, making him just India’s second individual gold medalist at the Olympics after Abhinav Bindra.
“It was a historic performance with the best-ever seven medals. There were moments of great triumph and heartbreaks, but that is what sport is all about. We have good momentum now going forward,” said Abhinav Bindra at a webinar.
“I see the next Olympics cycle will be tricky, primarily because of the shorter cycle. Normally athletes get a year post Olympics that allows them to rest and recover, but this time around they need to get back pretty quickly,” he added.
Abhinav Bindra said that while the world class competitors of the nation have been given logical preparation techniques, these additionally should be carried out at grassroots level.
“We talk about top leadership but I think we need to get more quality in the second-level of leadership. We need to empower these people with knowledge of how to set a high-performance environment,” he said.
“Incorporating science, technology, engineering, analytics and medicine to athletes’ training and development not just at elite level but basing it right at the grassroots level is important,” he added.
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