Impressed with India's strategy, vision is to contribute to Olympic movement: Visiting official

New Delhi: India has put in place an impressive strategy and vision in order to play a major role in the Olympic Movement, visiting director of International Olympic Academy Makis Asimakopoulos said on Friday.

A two-member delegation of Asimakopoulos and Alexandra Karaiskou visited the Sports Authority of India's headquarters in New Delhi to meet senior officials of the Sports Ministry, led by Sports Secretary Hari Ranjan Rao.

During the meeting, Asimakopoulos said he was impressed to see "the Plan, the strategy and the vision that the Sports Ministry has put in place in order to play a major role in the Olympic Movement," according a statement from the Press Information Bureau.

Asimakopoulos said after seeing all the sports programmes being run by the government, the International Olympic Academy is keen to extend help to strengthen Olympic education in the country.

"We want to bring our expertise to train people in the sports ecosystem on the values of Olympism and Olympic Games so that young people in India are trained to understand Olympic values," he said.

The meeting was aimed at discussing collaborations between the International Olympic Academy and the Sports Ministry, along with the Indian Olympic Association and the newly-revived National Olympic Academy, to strengthen sports education in the country through specially-curated programmes for Indian coaches, sports science experts and PE (Physical Education) teachers.

The International Olympic Academy, set up in 1961 and housed in ancient Olympia in Greece, is the only institution in the world promoting Olympic education and studies. It has a network of National Olympic Academies in various countries, including one in India, which has recently been revived.

Alexandra said, "We had a very productive discussion and from the presentation made by the Secretary Sports, we saw that India is taking concrete steps to host the Commonwealth Games and the bid for the 2036 Olympics.

"I am very happy that the National Olympic Academy in India has been revived after a very long time and we expect to work in very close collaboration with the IOA and Sports Authority of India to promote Olympic values in India."

Earlier this month, the Indian Olympic Association announced the "formal reactivation" of a National Olympic Academy (NOA) in Ahmedabad with its President and sprint legend PT Usha leading the facility's management.

While the NOA has existed since 2018, it's operations were stalled due to various reasons, including the Covid-19 pandemic.

Summing up the outcome of Friday's meeting, Rao said, "We had a very fruitful first meeting and we intend to take this collaboration forward so that we can draw from the rich experience of the IOA and strengthen our sports education further.

"Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the sports ecosystem is growing at a very fast pace & it is critical to create experts who can take the Olympic movement in India forward."

Rao further said that International Olympic Academy can support India's Olympic education endeavour by creating global standard curriculum tailored for India, extend skilling ecosystems at India's premiere education institutions, create certified courses for administrators, host masterclasses by international experts, and have joint research and digital collaborations.

Besides, it has been proposed that India will host a Conclave for Global National Olympic Academies. Discussions are afoot for collaborations with the Hellenic Olympic Committee (HOC) for Olympic education for hosting legacy knowledge exchange, the release stated.