The recently-concluded Rio Olympics was a major disappointment for India as the nation returned home with just two medals. PV Sindhu (silver) and Sakshi Malik (bronze) brought glory to the nation in badminton and wrestling respectively. However, two medals is a poor return from a country, whose population exceeds 1.2 billion, and this time around they had also sent their largest contingent of 118 athletes.
MS Dhoni, one of the star cricketers India has produced, has offered some tips on a bright future at the Olympics. The national team's ODI captain believes that for India to prosper in Olympics there is a serious need to look into the infrastructure and education.
"After one Olympics, if we invest in sports and say we will get a gold medal at the next Olympics, it doesn't work like that in sports. How it works is that you provide the infrastructure, provide education about nutrition and health," rediff quoted Dhoni as saying.
"Once the athletes have all these things at their disposal over a period of time, the nation will develop as a sporting nation. That is very crucial," he added.
The problem with India is that it has never been a great sporting nation, and their performances at Olympics are testimonial to the fact. India's best performance has been six medals at 2012 London Games.
Countries like Australia, Great Britain, China and the United States have a great sporting culture, and their results have always been satisfactory.
Dhoni feels parents should push their children to actively take part in sports at the school level. "That is how you will bring medals when its comes to games such as the Olympics. Money doesn't directly get you medals. (Sports) cannot be result oriented alone, you have to work over a period of time and educate people," he added.
Recently, the same was also echoed by Sindhu's coach, Pullela Gopichand for better results at Olympics.
