BENGALURU: There has been a lot of talks about Indian Olympic Association’s eagerness to hold the 2026 Youth Olympics and 2032 Olympics with president Narinder Batra being vocal about it as well.
Hosting an event like the Summer Olympics, irrespective of the year could give a boost to Indian sports like no other, but Beijing Olympics gold medallist Abhinav Bindra believes hosting Youth Olympics in India will mean more investment at the grassroots, which is quite the need of the hour.
“The Youth Olympics is a good opportunity. The Summer Games, we can think about later. If we can bring the Youth Olympics to India, I think it will be great because it will make sure that there is investment going into the grassroots and youth,” said Bindra.
Having hosted the 2010 Commonwealth Games in the past, the country has shown that it has a decent infrastructure to stage big events.
The first three editions of the Youth Olympics were hosted by Singapore, China and Argentina while the next edition is slated in Senegal (2022).
“It (Youth Olympics) is also more sustainable to do as the mandate of the IOC is that you do not need to build new infrastructure....you can’t build new infrastructure. The game has to be urban, you have to use public spaces, use existing infrastructure. In those ways, I think it is more doable and the fact that investment will go to the grassroots, which is badly needed. It could be a step in the right direction,” added Bindra during a book launch ‘Go! India’s Sporting Transformation’ in Bengaluru on Saturday.