Dravid, Bindra and Gopichand to select Olympic medal hopes

With an aim to increase India's medal tally in 2016 and 2020 Olympics, the Sports Ministry has decided to start a "Target Mission Olympic Podium Scheme" and an elite athletes identification committee, which will include sporting greats Rahul Dravid and Abhinav Bindra among others.
The scheme will be promoted by National Sports Development fund and will support India's best medal prospects for Rio de Janeiro 2016 and Tokyo 2020 Olympics and other major sporting events up to 2020 games.
Sports Ministry sources said that it has also been decided to constitute a TOP scheme elite athletes identification committee under BJP MP and executive member of IOA Anurag Thakur.

Apart from former cricket captain Dravid and Olympics gold medal winning shooter Bindra, the eight-member committee also consists of national badminton coach Pullela Gopichand, Director General of SAI (Sports Authority of India), Joint Secretary sports, MYAS, CEO of Mittal Champions Trust Manisha Malhotra and Amrit Mathur as convener.
The committee will evaluate and select around 75 to 100 talented potential medal prospects with 25-30 on watch list for 2016 and 2020 Olympics.
The focused disciplines will be athletics, archery, badminton, boxing, wrestling and shooting which have been India's best medal hopes so far.

India has won only 26 medals in its Olympic history, which include nine gold, six silver and 11 bronze. Out of nine gold, eight have been won by the Indian hockey team in 1928, 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944, 1948, 1952, 1956 and 1980. The only individual gold medal is won by Bindra, who is the member of Sports Ministry's committee.

The time frame for the task will be two months.
Applications will be invited from NSFs and individuals. Back up research will also be conducted on shortlisted applications.