How can India win 100 medals at the 2036 Olympics?
A national sports strategy that rebuilds how India finds, trains and keeps its athletes, from the school playground to the Olympic podium.
Key findings
- Fewer than 2% of Indians take part in organised sport, against about 30% in the US
- India spends about ₹24 per citizen a year on sport
- Almost half of the people we surveyed gave up sport to put their studies first
An independent proposal, written in response to a competition brief. The organisation it addresses did not commission this work, and we do not suggest it has acted on our recommendations.
The challenge
India won six medals at the Paris 2024 Olympics. Fewer than 2% of its people take part in organised sport, states spend between 0.1% and 0.6% of their budgets on it, and talent is spotted late and lost early. What would it take for India to win 100 medals at the 2036 Olympics?
Our approach
We traced the athlete pipeline from a child's first contact with sport to elite performance, and looked for where it leaks. Alongside government data, evaluations of the Khelo India scheme and comparisons with the US and China, we surveyed 83 people about why they did or didn't pursue sport, and interviewed three professional athletes, a Sports Authority of India coach and a private coach.
How we found the answer
The gap is structural, not a shortage of talent. The same bodies run grassroots and elite sport, though the two need different things. States control sport and fund it unevenly. Children are spotted late, good coaches leave the public system, girls drop out under social pressure, and most young people choose studies over an uncertain sporting career.
So we built the plan around the whole pipeline, in three pillars: building the foundation, promoting inclusion and achieving excellence, rather than spending more on elite athletes alone.
What we proposed
- Split governance: a National Grassroots Sports Development Authority for participation, and a Sports Performance Institute of India for identified talent.
- Move sport from the State List to the Concurrent List, for steadier funding and common standards across states.
- A digital athlete card for every student in Kendriya and Navodaya Vidyalayas (over 17 lakh students), using fitness and body measurements to spot natural talent and match children to sports.
- Multi-sport mats in these schools, to introduce Olympic disciplines beyond the nine sports most children ever try.
- Raise public-sector coach pay to ₹1 lakh a month, with accreditation and sports science built into training.
- Tax incentives and public recognition to bring more CSR money into sport, and public-private partnerships to run training centres.
- Safe, women-specific facilities, scholarships for athletes from low-income families, and flexible schooling so athletes don't have to choose between study and sport.
Potential impact
The plan sets medal targets for each Commonwealth, Asian and Olympic Games on the way to 2036. Our sport-by-sport estimate comes to 110 Olympic medals in 2036, 37 of them gold, led by athletics, wrestling and shooting.
Modelled in our analysis. These are estimates, not results measured in operation.
Recognition
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