‘Important to win more than 10 medals if India are to host Olympics in 2036’: PR Sreejesh at HTLS 2024

More than two months after the Indian contingent returned with six medals at the 2024 Paris Olympics, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) submitted a ‘Letter of Intent’ to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) about the country’s desire to host the Games in 2036. With a good 12 years to go, India and its athletes have plenty of time to continue the upward curve across sports, but PR Sreejesh, a two-time Olympic medal winner, believes just hosting the Games is not enough. Winner of a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and a bronze in August at Paris, Sreejesh reckons India needs to step up its medal tally before bagging the hosting rights.

After their best-ever medal haul of 7 at the Tokyo Games, the 117-member Indian contingent was believed to outdo it easily. But instead, the medal count ended up being one short compared to three years ago, with the deal-breaker being six 4th-place finishes, hurting India big time. Besides, India did not win even a single gold, a fact that will sting for sometime. Speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, Sreejesh stressed on the importance of putting up a good show if the Olympics comes to grace the Indian shores.

“Financially and technically, we are capable of hosting an international event like Olympics. But the question is how is it going to be. How it’s going to benefit our athletes? How many medals are we going to win? Are we capable of participating in each event? That are the questions that are raised. Because we do participate in events. Nowadays we are dreaming about winning more medals. Individual medals. Hockey is one of the events where we expect, shooting another. Wrestling, boxing badminton,” he said.

“But what about gymnastics and swimming, which have more events and more medals? It’s about are we are we focusing into those areas where we can fulfil. Even if we are hosting 2036 Olympics, how many medals are we expecting? Are we covering these areas? Because hosting Olympic Games could be easy but winning a medal is going to be a tougher task for us. We need to think about this aspect before we are stepping in. If we are hosting and struggle to get into a double digit, then it’s going to be real tough. Playing Olympics itself is great pressure. These two guys definitely know about that. To play it in front of your own people will require a lot of effort and you need to dream bigger.”