IOC Chairman Focused On Sports At Grassroots Level With Focus On 2036 Olympics At Home

Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has long been associated with the endeavour of supporting India’s growth as a sporting nation and chairman Arvinder Singh Sahney stated it was all about providing support from the grassroot level.

In an exclusive interview with The Free Press Journal, Sahney felt supporting the under-14 and under-15 budding athletes was the key to India excelling at the Olympic level and especially with the nation’s planned bid for hosting the 2036 Olympics.

“We would like to contribute at the grassroots level because if we are targeting 2036 Olympics, then the people who are going to win medals most probably, so now they are U-14 or U-15, so that kind of initiative we want to expand that. Today, we are already supporting 200-250 scholarship players.”

Sahney explained for IOC it is never about sponsoring just one event but the long-term perspective that matters.

“For us it’s a long term program, it’s not about one event to event. We have been covering sports for a very long time for many years. A marathon organized by the Indian Air Force which started this year, we have been supporting it as well, it happened last month only,” he added.

Sahney revealed that IOC was backing the growth of para athletics.

“We have been supporting para athletics in a very big way. Two months back there was a world championship of para athletics. For the next three years we will be covering the para athletes leading up the Paralympics in Los Angeles in 2028,” he added.

He also stated IOC was among the select corporates who have their own women’s hockey team.

“We are one of the few corporates that have our own women hockey team which is a very unique thing. Not many corporates in India have it. That is one, then there is badminton, then hockey men’s team we are supporting. So that is our way of reaching out to the public and making a positive improvement in their life,” he added.

Talking about IOC’s future plans, Sahney explained the immediate target is to identify potential medal winning athletes and train them for the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.

“Our immediate target in the next two and a half years is to identify athletes who have the potential to be on the podium at the Olympics. And that is how we are framing our plans to contribute to the nation,” he added.

The IOC chairman felt it was a matter of pride for them to be involved with sporting events of the Indian armed forces.

“We are more proud of doing it for the sports people and getting associated with these kinds of events where the Indian armed forces are involved, youth is involved, Every state of the population is involved, the differently abled are involved, the youth is involved. This is more satisfying and giving us more encouragement to be involved with such events and encourage individual sports people till next Olympics,” he added.

Talking about some of the Indian sportspersons that IOC sponsors, Sahney mentioned a few across disciplines.

“There are several sports people, it starts from the scholarship level, the U-15 and U-14 level. Then badminton all top 3-4 players are with us. Satwik-Chirag is with us, Lakshya Sen is with us. There are so many of them. In table tennis, Manika Batra is there, then there are several them. Achanta Sharath Kamal retired recently, Rohan Bopanna retired recently. Several men’s hockey players are also with us.”

‘Women’s hockey team atleast 7-8 national players are with us.”

However, Sahney opined that he is more passionate about the para athletes as they have real potential.

“I’m more passionate about the para athletes because they are going to suddenly give me podium finish. They will perform exceedingly well at the Olympics. I’m very sure that our association will help them get a big boost,” he added.

Sahney elaborated on three of IOC’s flagship programs for the development of sports and nation building.

“Plus, we are working on several programs and one of them is called Divya Shakti. It is one of our programs where we have taken 20-25 specially abled athletes to Paralympics. Half of them are men and half of them are women. We have given them a facility in Bengaluru under SAI. Whenever they are not competing, they are stationed there, they are looked after and trained. Now they are performing exceedingly well.”

“There is another we are doing for jail inmates. We are taking it to 150 Indian jails and there we are contributing by supporting and giving coaching plus building small infrastructure in that vicinity. In this Pune Yerwada jail, we have trained some inmates in chess. A tournament is conducted by FIDE where the jail inmates compete and these players in the last three years have been world champions and one year they have been runner’s up. We have supported them. This is called Parivartan.

Then we have been organizing some rehabilitation programs in juvenile homes and it is called Nai Disha,” Sahney explained.