New Delhi: The Inspire Institute of Sport (IIS) had 26 medallists at the Khelo India Youth Games, a jump from the 16 it had produced in last year’s edition. Thirteen of these were gold, more than half of which came in the sport of Judo.
“Yes, we knew that there would be a decent medal haul,” IIS Head of Sports Excellence & Scouting Manisha Malhotra told IANS. “The depth within the nation for these sports is still not that deep and so it is easy to predict the people winning.”
IIS-based judo players won 8 golds, 4 silvers and 4 bronze and Malhotra said it is a testament to the fact that the institute has supported the sport from it’s inception.
“Judo is a sport which we have supported from scratch. It was a sport where no one else was really supporting and even the talent initially were the drop outs from wrestling.
“With the recent results, there is a big boost within the sport and the popularity has definitely grown. It is still nowhere near wrestling but that will take time.”
Apart from this, three medals (two golds) came in wrestling and five medals (three golds) came in boxing. However, only one medal — a silver — was won in athletics by a player from IIS.
“The distribution of medals is somewhat consistent across the sports we support. Although we feel like there needs to be more from athletics,” said Malhotra.
