As India searches for young sporting talent with 2036 in mind, the bigger test will be whether the system can support those athletes honestly and consistently for the next decade
By Harpal Singh Flora
India’s ambition for the 2036 Olympic Games is beginning to move beyond the question of hosting.
There is now another question that may eventually matter just as much: if India does host the Olympics in 2036, how competitive will its athletes be?
That is why the recent focus on grassroots talent identification deserves attention.
On August 15, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a nationwide sports talent hunt for children between the ages of five and 15, specifically linking the initiative with India’s ambitions for 2036. Five days later, Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya asked the Sports Authority of India to accelerate talent identification and work towards building an athlete pool for 2036.
The idea itself did not begin in 2026. India had already launched the Khelo India Rising Talent Identification programme, known as KIRTI, in March 2024. It was designed to identify sporting potential among schoolchildren aged nine to 18 through a nationwide programme.
What is significant now is that this process is being viewed more directly through the 2036 Olympic lens.
And the timing makes sense.
A child who is eight or 10 today could be approaching elite competitive age by 2036. If India wants a significantly larger pool of Olympic-level athletes ten years from now, the search has to begin much earlier.
But finding talented children may prove to be the easiest part of the job.
## What happens after the talent is found?
India is a country of more than a billion people. Finding children with speed, strength, endurance, coordination or other sporting abilities should not, by itself, be considered the achievement.
The real test begins after identification.
Will that child get the right coach?
Will training continue consistently for the next eight or ten years?
Will the athlete receive appropriate competition exposure, nutrition, sports science and medical support?
And will promising athletes continue to receive opportunities on merit, even when they suffer an injury, temporarily lose form or take longer than expected to develop?
This is where the Sports Authority of India, national sports federations and coaches will have to play perhaps their most important role.
Talent is important. But **supporting talent honestly is equally important**.
A potential Olympian cannot simply be identified, entered into a database and then expected to emerge as an international athlete a decade later.
Athlete development is a long process. It requires continuity, qualified coaching, competition, monitoring, protection from injury and, importantly, confidence in the sporting system around the athlete.
The success of India’s talent programme should therefore not ultimately be judged by how many children were assessed.
The more meaningful measure will be how many identified athletes remain in the system, progress through national competition, reach international standards and eventually become genuine Olympic contenders.
## The anti-doping challenge must begin at grassroots level too
There is another area that cannot be separated from India’s 2036 medal ambitions: clean sport.
India needs strong anti-doping enforcement, but testing alone cannot solve the problem. Education has to become part of athlete development from an early stage.
Under the World Anti-Doping Code, athletes have a personal responsibility to ensure that prohibited substances do not enter their bodies. Under the principle commonly known as strict liability, intent does not need to be established for the presence of a prohibited substance to constitute an anti-doping rule violation.
That makes education particularly important for young athletes.
A medicine taken for an illness can present an anti-doping risk if it contains a prohibited substance. The same athlete who is being trained in technique, fitness and competition rules must therefore also learn how to check a medicine before taking it and when to seek appropriate medical advice.
NADA India already operates the **Know Your Medicine (KYM)** platform, which allows athletes, support personnel and medical practitioners to check the prohibited status of medicines and their ingredients. NADA says the tool is intended to help athletes safeguard themselves against inadvertent doping.
The challenge is to ensure that such information does not remain confined to elite athletes or national camps.
If talent is being searched for in villages, towns and schools, anti-doping education must reach those places as well.
Every young athlete and every coach entering the pathway should understand that clean sport is not something to learn only after reaching international competition.
## Building stadiums and building athletes are different projects
India’s 2036 Olympic ambition will naturally involve major discussions about infrastructure and the ability to stage the world’s biggest sporting event.
But infrastructure and sporting performance operate on very different timelines.
A stadium can be built to a deadline.
An Olympic athlete cannot.
An athlete may need a decade of coaching, competition, defeats, injuries, recovery and continuous support before reaching the Olympic podium.
That is why beginning the search now is important.
But the announcement of a talent hunt should be seen as the starting point, not the achievement itself.
Over the next decade, the bigger question will be whether India’s sporting institutions can convert identification into development—and development into international performance.
If India eventually hosts the Olympic Games in 2036, its venues may demonstrate how successfully the country prepared to organise the Games.
Its athletes will tell another story.
India’s challenge is not only to bring the Olympics to India. It is also to prepare India for the Olympics.
Harpal Singh Flora is a senior sports journalist and administrator with 30+ years of experience in Indian and International sports. As Sports Editor Sportsnet Intel, he specialises in sports governance, policy, federation accountability, and grassroots development. A recognised voice in India’s sports and Olympic circles, he brings deep insight into the systems shaping Indian sport.
