India does not have any chance of winning a medal in athletics in the forthcoming Beijing Olympics, feels former long distance runner Gurbachan Singh Randhawa.
NEW DELHI: India does not have any chance of winning a medal in athletics in the forthcoming Beijing Olympics, feels former long distance runner Gurbachan Singh Randhawa.
"I am not very hopeful about India's performance in the Beijing Olympics. I don't think India has any chance of winning a medal in athletics," said Randhawa.
However, the 69-year-old Olympian has high hopes from the Indian shooters who, he thinks, can win a medal.
Randhawa, who was here for the launch of the latest Limca Book of Records, said the younger athletes were not focused enough to achieve good results at bigger meets.
"In our time, we never had such facilities. Now although the facilities are better, the youth are not sincere and there is lack of dedication," he said.
Asked how prepared is Delhi and the players for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, Randhawa said there were not enough tracks for training.
"As far as the infrastructure is concerned, Delhi is going pretty well but we don't have enough fields for training. We need synthetic tracks to practice," said Randhawa, a 2005 Padma Shri awardee.
Randhawa, who was the country's flag-bearer at the 1960 Rome and 1964 Tokyo Olympics, rued that India did not have enough bench strength.
"Sportspersons at the grassroots are not getting enough support, so we don't have a strong bench strength."
Randhawa said just training abroad was not enough and the athletes should get enough international exposure.
"It's good that players are sent abroad for training, but training alone is not sufficient. There should be competitions so that players can have some exposure," he said.
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