While hailing the path breaking performance by Indian sportspersons in the London Olympics, IOA Chief VK Malhortra says Hockey needs a comprehensive future plan to improve from the present low.

London,13 August : Indian Olympic association (IOA) today hailed the ‘path breaking ‘ performance of its contingent in the Olympic Games and said it will give tremendous boost to the sports in the country.

‘ Our sportspersons did us proud. We won six medals-two silvers and four bronze- which is the biggest ever medal haul by India in the Olympics’ said IOA acting chief Vijay Kumar Malhotra.

‘The shooters and wrestlers gave us four medals – two Silver and two bronze while Boxing and Badminton provided a medal each’

In last four Olympics (1996 to 2008), we won total of six medals- one gold, a silver and four bronze but this time our tally equals those four Games haul’

‘Wrestler Sushil Kumar rewrote history as he became the only Individual Indian to win the medals in two successive Olympic Games.’

A brave display by Yogeshwar Dutt which earned him a bronze is praise worthy.’

‘The performance has been very satisfactory, we missed couple of Gold medals by whisker otherwise our tally and ranking would have been much higher’ he said here before his departure for India.

‘ Apart from medal winners, other sports persons also gave a heartwarming performances which argues well for the future of Indian Sports’

Prof Malhotra pointed out that this was the first time three Indian athletes finished among top ten in their respective events- Krishna Poonia (7th in discus), Vikas Gowda(8th in discus) and K.T.Irfan 10th in 20 km walk- and given the tough field it is a great achievement’

He said in badminton besides Saina Nehiwal’s medal winning show, P.Kashyap’s also did very well by reaching the quarter finals. It was no mean achievement given the challenge he faced.

The IOA chief pointed out India missed out couple of certain medals in Boxing ’ the pugilists boxed very well but few of them could not get the decision in their favoure. ‘In women section Mary kom fought well for well deserved bronze.

Apart from Vijay Kumar (silver) and Gagan Narang (bronze), few other promising shooters missed out narrowly.

‘The rowers performance was satisfactory. They showed that they can compete with top teams in the World on equal terms’

He admitted that Archery team’s performance left much to be desired’ I think the young archers got overawed by the aura of Olympics and also some of them fell ill immediately after arriving here and that affected them.

Prof Malhotra said Hockey team ‘s showing was much below expectations.’ We needed not castigate the players. This is part of the Game. However we need to have a comprehensive future plan for hockey in the country’

He also said that there were lot of expectations from Tennis but despite all the players giving their best, they could not make it to the podium.

The IOA chief said that though India took part in 13 events ,in some of them there was a token representation, like in Judo, Swimming (one each),Table Tennis Weightlifting (two each).

‘ Sports persons in these events got good exposure and I hope they will make full use of that .

Prof Malhotra said IOA will continue to provide all facilities to sportspersons. ’We showed the way by distributing all sponsored money to the qualified players and they also responded well by giving good performance and raising the profile of Indian sports in the World Arena.