India need to start building a swimming base: Rice
MUMBAI: Three-time Beijing Olympic gold medallist Stephanie Rice has voiced her concern on the shambolic performances of Indian swimmers over the years, stating India wouldn’t make progress in the sport until there’s a pool of talented athletes challenging at the top.
Indian swimmers have never bagged a medal at the Olympics while they have won just one medal at the Commonwealth Games. The tally at the Asian Games is also a dismal nine so far since its inception in 1951. With more than 20-odd categories in each section (men’s, women’s and mixed), swimming offers the maximum opportunity for athletes to scoop medals.
Australia, the eventual medal-toppers of the 2018 Commonwealth Games, finished the quadrennial event with 198 medals. Of that, 73 medals were in swimming. Also, of its 80 gold medals, 28 were clinched in the pool. With that kind of success in the pool, it’s a no-brainer why Australia have managed to top the medal tally in four of the last five editions of the Commonwealth Games.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Ekamra International Sports Literary Fest in Bhubaneshwar, Rice said: “The only issue that I have with India and swimming is you’re never going to do well as a country if there’s only one or two people doing well.
“So, really, in a sport like swimming where there’s up to like 20 medals to be won, you need a whole team. You need like 20-40 great athletes and the only way you’re going to do that is start building bases in India with great coaches, great sports medi- cine, great sports science…”
The Australian feels India can be up there in the top-three but need to address the problems soon and be willing to help to build a strong base for the sport. “That’s what I would love to be involved with, helping to grow the depth of swimming in India, because there can absolutely be no reason that they can’t be up in the top three in the world, it’s just not there yet,” Rice said.