Olympic aspirations

Start from basics to develop a sporting culture in the country

The Olympic Games at Tokyo have led to unusual levels of enthusiasm in India, which has been placed higher on the medals table than ever before. The country has never before won as many as seven medals; its previous best was six at London 2012. On this occasion, one of those medals was also an individual gold — India last bagged a gold medal when Abhinav Bindra won in the 10-metre air rifle category at Beijing 2008. It was also India’s first individual track and field medal in over a century. There were also disappointments: The shooting contingent, which had