BENGALURU: The Sports Law and Policy Research Centre and GoSports Foundation has launched the ‘Gold Standard’ report, a study tracking the Olympic and Paralympic gold medal winning journeys of two of India’s most celebrated sportsmen, Devendra Jhajharia and Abhinav Bindra.
The 50-page report provides an insight into the daily life and rigours of a Gold medal-winning athlete through the stories of two opposite journeys to the top of the podium; the disciplined yet obsessive, almost fanatic, path undertaken by Abhinav Bindra with support from his team spread all over the world, in contrast to the focused yet slightly more solitary path taken by Jhajharia. Both their stories stand out as unique, coming from a country starved for sporting success, with each athlete having to chart his own course and find the right people to handhold his journey. This paper, through personal anecdotes, analysis of their training plans and diet and nutrition plans, and through interviews with the people that have traversed the journey with them in the form of coaches, parents and friends, tries to define these paths to success in an Indian context. It also touches upon the journeys of India's first ever Paralympic Gold medallist Murlikant Petkar (1972 Paralympics), and Mariyappan Thangavelu (2016 Paralympics).
The study was launched on the background of the GoSports Foundation Sports Awards Nite, an event that rewarded the foundation's emerging and elite talents of the past year and featured the ‘Gold Standard’ panel, with Abhinav Bindra, Devendra Jhajharia and Murlikant Petkar coming together for the first time ever.
Speaking on the back of the launch at the event, editor of the paper Shan Kohli shared, “We at the GoSports Foundation and Sports Law and Policy Centre undertook this project so that lessons from Devendra Jhajharia and Abhinav Bindra's gold medal winning journeys can serve as a starting point to create winning environments for all Indian athletes. Through this document we have tried to give the reader a flavor of the daily life and rigours of a gold medal-winning athlete by tracking various aspects of their journeys. These include setting out the key individuals who faormed a part of their gold medal winning team, setting out their training schedule in the run-up to the Olympic and Paralympic Games, understanding their diet and nutrition plans, tracking the innovative training methods employed by them, setting out their personal and qualitative attributes and finally reflecting on the impact of winning the medal both personally as well on the country.”
The study is currently available online at sportslaw.in
- Log in to post comments