Olympian Anju Bobby George believes the quality of the infrastructure in the country is very low. The star long jumper is of the opinion that the country has too many stadiums, but they are of low quality.
Ankit Sharma booked a Rio ticket last month in long jump with a jump of 8.17 metres in Kazakhstan. He is the only one till date to qualify for Olympics from long jump.
However, Anju said that she expected lot more athletes to qualify from the jumps. “We expected few more qualifications from long jump and triple jump side. Unfortunately, Mayookha got injured and Renjith is still struggling for qualification,” she said on the sidelines of an event.
She added: “We have good talents but not reaching up to the mark.”
When asked the reason behind it, she had to look nowhere else but the low conditions of the infrastructure level in the country.
“We are setting up too many tracks and too many gyms and everything but quality is very low. The quality of infrastructure is very low,” she said. “We are making too many stadiums and too many things but very low quality,” added the athlete who in 2003, became the first Indian athlete ever to win a medal in a World Athletics Championships.
She also thinks that it will be a tough ask for Ankit to get a medal.
“If he can produce the same jump he can reach best of eight, but still medal is far away,” George said.
She wants the nation to concentrate more on athletes winning a medal and not only on qualifying. “In athletics getting a medal is very hard. In football, athletics and swimming, getting medals are difficult. We have to be concentrating on getting a medal rather than qualifying,” she added.
The 39-year-old believes the level in athletics in the country has certainly improveds, however, India can realistically hope for a medal by 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
“The level has gone up. But medal is difficult. In a biggest stage like Olympics we can’t predict. But, by 2020 we can expect medal from athletics side,” she said.