Prakash Padukone feels that athletes and not just the administrators are accountable for India's poor showing at Rio
While the 2016 Rio Olympics was a disappointing outing for many sports, for badminton it wasn’t the case as the sport brought the country its second consecutive Olympic medal, courtesy PV Sindhu, who won the silver medal in the Women’s Singles.
In an overall scenario, however, a lot of introspection beckons to India’s lacklustre showing and already many have asked for an administrative overhaul in order to ensure the next batch of athletes don’t have to suffer.
However, one badminton legend doesn’t believe that it is entirely the issue of the administration that has led to India’s poor performance. Prakash Padukone, one of India’s most respected sportspersons feels that the Sports Authority of India aren’t accountable for the country’s poor showing and the athletes also have to take a fair share of the blame.
“I have been noticing a tendency to blame the government for all our problems in Rio, and I do not support this approach,” he wrote in his column for the Times of India.
“In fact, I will go to the extent of saying that for the first time in the history of Indian sport, I will not hold the Sports Ministry or SAI responsible for our below par performance. To some extent the athletes themselves have to be held accountable for their performance,” he further wrote.
The National Rifles Association of India(NRAI) have started looking at the reasons for what went wrong with the shooters at Rio and intend to come up with a more centralised system in future. Hopefully, those efforts will help them perform much better in the upcoming events.