Rio Olympics: Sports Minister Finds Reason to Rejoice, as India's Dry Spell Continues

Tuesday was a day of near misses for India at Rio, with Abhinav Bindra narrowly missing out on a medal at his last Olympics in the men's 10m Air Rifle and the Indian hockey team conceding a goal in the dying seconds to lose their group match against Germany.

In fact, that has been the story for team India at Rio in the first three days of the summer games: The much fancied women's archery team and highly rated shooter Jitu Rai both fell well short of winning medals earlier in the week.

And even though the 118 member Indian contingent- the largest ever for India at the Olympics- is yet to open their account on the medals tally, Sports Minister Vijay Goel, here in Rio to watch the games, sees India's showing so far in a more positive light.

"Let's just not see how many medals we have won. We have to see if our performance has improved compared to previous editions. We have our biggest Olympic contingent here. In London 81 athletes qualified in 10 disciplines and here in Rio 119 have qualified in 15 discipline. I feel proud of that," he said.

When asked why the government only focuses on athletes' requirements just months before the Olympics, compared to other countries that start their preparations years in advance, he said, "PM Modi has shown a lot of interest since coming into power two years ago. He has made it clear that we have to start preparing for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. We will soon identity one thousand athletes and give them customise training for the next Olympics"

Meanwhile, there have been constant laments about the conditions of the accommodation and other facilities at the athlete's village: The Indian hockey team complained of no furniture and TVs in their rooms, whilst a few women athletes told NDTV about the delay and quality of the kit (uniform) they have been given.

Responding to the athletes complaint the sports minister said, "The poor facilities here is the responsibility of the local organising committee. Despite that we gave the Indian team all they needed. Be it furniture in their rooms to TVs. As for the kits, that too was looked into by the respective federations. A mountain has ben made out of a mole hill as far as these controversies are concerned. I don't think any of it affected our athletes' performances"