Kiren Rijiju wants India to focus on swimming to excel at the Olympics

Sports minister feels that India must start developing in aquatic sports.

Swimming offers multiple medals at the Olympics and most of the successful nations have flourished in it. India's sports minister Kiren Rijiju insists that India must start shifting their focus towards Swimming and should target the 2028 Olympics.

“Historically, the top countries in the Olympics have bagged a large number of medals in swimming. In the last five Olympics USA has won about 31 per cent of their total medals in swimming,” said Kiren Rijiju.

“There is a great opportunity for any country because of the sheer number of events that take place in aquatics. Today, we don’t stand anywhere in swimming at the Olympic level but there is a huge potential in the sport if we act with dedication, proper planning and adequate resources.”

The Sports Minister feels that Indians have the potential to bag medals in aquatic sports in future and the 2028 Olympics will be a feasible target for the country to focus on.

Kiren Rijiju was part of an online knowledge workshop where he addressed swimming coaches all across the country. The online workshop was organized by the Sports Authority of India (SAI) in partnership with the Swimming Federation of India (SFI).

He remarked, “I don’t see any reason why India should lag behind. In the 2021 Olympics, we do not have the strength to win medals in swimming, but we can start preparing for the 2028 Olympics."

The minister suggested the SFI to take immediate steps and make a roadmap and also scout the talents from all over the country getting them prepared for the future.

“There are some facilities that are world-class, the facility of JSW and the Army Institute in Pune which are very good, but we need many more such private academies to come forward to create more facilities,” signed off Rijiju.