Borromeo hopeful of India will open its account in Olympic

Jamshedpur: Former Olympian Charles Borromeo on Saturday expressed confidence that India would open its account in the track and field events in the London Olympic Games.

The Padmashree and Arjuna awardee player who won gold medal in the 1982 9th Asian Games, Borromeo said, "I am very much hopeful that the Indian athletes will win medals in the London Olympics as they have good prospect in the track and field events particularly Walking and Discus throw events". Delhi Commonwealth Games gold medallist Padmashree Krishna Punia, is in a tremendous form and performing within the medal-winning range, he told a news agency. Besides Punia, India also have good prospect in the Walk event, 52-year-old Borromeo, said adding that other athletes qualified for the London quadrennial sport extravaganza were all talented but yet to enhance performance to win medal. To a query about the prospect of Tintu Luka, a protege of legendary athlete P T Usha, Borromeo said it was her first exposure in Olympic games and needed to improve her timing. Luka is a talented athlete but she needs more exposure to enhance her performance, he observed. Asked about India`s dismal performance in track and field events in Olympic Games, Borromeo said we have deep rooted talent in athletics including middle and long distance race (men and women), shot put, long jump, triple jump, high jump etc but we are lacking behind in structural system to nurture the talents. "We do not lack talent or physique to win medal at any level but lacked presence of structural system to promote sports at the grass-root level," he opined. Borromeo replied in negative, when asked that our women athletes were performing better than their male counterpart at the international level. PTI