Bindra, Gopichand in Task Force for next 3 Olympics

TIL Desk Sports/ India’s lone Olympic gold-medallist Abhinav Bindra and national badminton coach Pullela Gopichand on Monday found a place in an eight-member Task Force of the Sports Ministry to draw up an action plan for the next three Olympic Games.

Just days after the end of the Rio Olympics, where India won just two medals, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the setting up of a task force which will help plan for the “effective participation” of Indian sportspersons in the next three Olympics — in 2020, 2024 and 2028.  Bindra, Gopichand and former Indian hockey captain Viren Rasquinha were the only three former sportspersons named in the task force.

The other five members of the task force are School Sports Promotion Board head Om Pathak, hockey coach S Baldev Singh, who runs an academy in Shahabad, G L Khanna (Professor and Dean of Exercise and Physiology at Manav Rachna International University at Faridabad), journalist Rajesh Kalra and Sports Authority of Gujarat Director General Sandeep Pradhan.

Announcing the task force here, Sports Minister Vijay Goel told reporters that “the tenure of the committee will be for three months or till the time it submits its report”. He said the job of the chairman of the committee will be given on rotational basis while Pradhan will be the convener.