I don't think that’s the attitude among the athletes. I really believe that the Indian athlete is very motivated and wants to win, and I think the Indian athlete has all what it takes to win. Sometimes in India, when the Olympics come, we are not preparing for success, we are preparing for failure. It's a matter of attitude, it's a matter of thinking, and that needs to change.

•In fact, if I may say so, just your gold medal did change that. All these boxers, Saina Nehwal, they’ve all got to quarterfinals that Indians never got to, and getting into a quarterfinal in the Olympics puts you in the gold medal contention, say at the Asian level, which wasn’t the case earlier. So you, in your own way, have made a difference.

Absolutely, our boxers have done exceedingly well. Akhil Kumar did amazingly well…

•Yeah, but the feeling that so and so, just like me, my age has got the gold medal so we can, Indians can do it.

Absolutely, It’s a start and there’s no doubt that we are right there. I mean there’s no difference between us and anyone, anywhere else.

•So when you say that in the past it looked like we were preparing for failure, give me some examples, you know the mindset.

It’s got a lot to do with the set up, I think. I want to emphasise that it’s in the set up of the whole sports infrastructure in India. I mean people responsible for running the sport, sometimes they themselves don’t believe that the athlete is going to win. Sometimes the attitude is that the athlete is just going for a vacation or something.

... contd.