Former Olympic gold-medallist shooter Abhinav Bindra and shuttler Pullela Gopichand were named by the Sports Ministry as a part of an eight-member task force for the next three Olympics [2020, 2024 and 2028] on Monday, reported PTI. The job of the task force would be to identify medal prospects – in the short and long term – and to provide them with effective training methods.
Bindra and Gopichand, along with former India hockey skipper Viren Rasquinha are the only sportspersons who have been appointed in the task force. The five other members on the panel are School Sports Promotion Board chief Om Pathak, hockey coach S Baldev Singh, GL Khanna [Professor and Dean of Exercise and Physiology at Manav Rachna International University at Faridabad], journalist Rajesh Kalra and Sports Authority of Gujarat director Sandeep Pradhan.
Sports minister Vijay Goel stated that “the tenure of the committee will be for three months or till the time it submits its report”. Goel added that the final report would be handed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, “The report will be submitted to Sports Ministry. But since the Prime Minister has approved the committee, the final report will be submitted to the PMO,” Goel said.
Goel also defended the lack of a larger pool of previous Olympic medal winners on the panel, “ This task force is not a representative body where people of several disciplines will be there. This task force is open for all, whoever wants to give ideas, he can give”
“If I start including people discipline-wise, so many names will come up and there will be no end. This committee can call any expert, Indian or foreigner, coaches or former sportspersons in various fields. Anybody can give suggestions to this task force and moreover anybody can come and give the suggestion directly to the Sports Minister,” Goel added.
The announcement comes in the wake of Bindra being appointed as the chairman of the 10-member Target Olympic Podium committee on Friday to identify and support medal prospects for the 2020 and the 2024 summer games. The committee also included PT Usha, Prakash Padukone, Anjali Bhagwat and Karnam Malleshwari.
Gopichand’s stock has risen in recent times after coaching PV Sindhu to the silver medal in Rio Olympics 2016. In addition to this, Bindra was also approached to formulate a National Sports Development Code.