Dear Mr @narendramodi: Congratulations on the gold medal of #NeerajChopra & the 7 medals at #TokyoOlympics – India’s best ever tally! As an ex decathlete & someone who still practices sports today (basketball, badminton, tennis, jogging & cycling), I can tell you that javelin is an extremely demanding craft that requires strength, but also high technical skills.

Yet, as you are aware, no doubt, #China collected 88 medals out of which 38 were gold and topped the charts with the USA. A nation’s greatness is not only measured in its economic, military and political clout, but also on how well it performs in sports. China started the same way as India: in the 70’s, the only sports Chinese practiced was table tennis. In 40 years they have managed to raise a nation of athletes who excel in every sports, from swimming to athletics, from diving to gymnastics, where they had no skills before.

In this light, India’s – a nation of 1,4 billion – performance in global sports, ranked extremely low, except brilliant exceptions in basketball, football, gymnastics, athletics, etc, raises once more the question of why all Govts, whether @Congress or @BJP4india, are indifferent to sports and give it only token attention. We know that you have done more than any other PM for sports and Neeraj’s tweets are a testimony to that. Nevertheless, if India wants to reach China’s level, here is a roadmap:

1. Curtail International cricket matches (to 5 tests a year) and encourage domestic cricket. why cant anybody understand that #cricket kills all other sports in this country and is directly responsible for India’s 48^th medal ranking in #Olympics (below Equator or Uganda). All Media, sponsorship, public attention is on 11 stars who live in utter luxury, travel  first class, stay in 5 stars hotels and are billionaires in a few years. Biggest culprit is Govt which makes 100’s of crores out of cricket every year

• Take sports out of the hands of politicians. Sports is just a stepping ladder & an extra ladoo, for politicians, who are often old and have never practiced any sports in their life. Also stop this politicians’ practice of giving cash money to athletes who win medals. Its just a way of claiming glory for themselves.
• Increase 5 fold the budget of sports at Central and State levels
• Introduce compulsory sports right from Cass 1 after kindergarten and have scouts pick up talents all over the country for dedicated training in centralized sports complexes with latest apparatus and capable coaches of international standard.
• Privatize sports and hand it over to Indian companies that have at heart nationalism and pride of India
• India is the birthplace of #pranayama #hatayoga & meditation. Other countries use it to better their athletes’ performances. But not India. It would produce super sportsmen and women and India would get the place it deserves in world sports

Yours humbly

Francois Gautier