PANAJI: Olympic gold-medallist Neeraj Chopra on Monday was the keynote speaker of the National Centre for Sports Science and Research (NCSSR) session on ‘Olympic Gold In Athletics – A Billion Dream Fulfilled And My Journey,’ where he not only spoke about his Olympic journey but also how sports as a whole has grown in India, especially when it comes to sports science and biomechanics.
Neeraj, who is currently training in Finland for the upcoming Athletics World Championships and Commonwealth Games (CWG), attended the session online and said having a team with technical knowledge of Sports Science and Biomechanics helps one grow as an athlete, and give world level performance.
“I believe to be able to give a world-class performance, things like sports science and biomechanics matter a lot along with your regular training. Further, having knowledge of sports science also helps you understand things like nutrition, diet, recovery, and biomechanics technically. It is only after understanding all of this and more that we are able to progress as an athlete and as a competitor. This is the case for me here and at NSNIS Patiala, where I slowly learnt about all of this and am thus able to progress as a player. So having knowledge of Sports Science and Biomechanics helps a lot.”
NCSSR in collaboration with the Government of Haryana, Sports Authority of India (SAI), and Sports Science and Analytics Centre, IIT Madras is hosting a two-day conference on ‘Innovative Technological and Sports Sciences Practices for High Performance in Youth Sports’ at the ongoing SBI Khelo India Youth Games (KIYG) in Panchkula.
This is for the first time that the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports (MYAS) has taken such a huge initiative and set up NCSSR for the promotion of Sports Science in the country, especially using an event like the Khelo India Youth Games to launch and propagate the initiative.
With the NCSSR platform, the ministry aims to help athletes not only improve their performance but also avoid injury. To kickstart the initiative the sports ministry has already created 400 posts for sports science specialists, out of which 250 are already working with SAI. The NCSSR will act in the hub and spoke model where SAI centres across the country will act as spoke and input data about athletes to the head office of NCSSR which will act as hub for research and analysis of the data to help improve athlete performance.
Just before Neeraj’s session at NCSSR, SAI also signed an MOU with IIT – Madras where IIT-M will now provide their technology and biomechanics specialisation inputs for athletes’ development in the country. The day one sessions was also attended by eminent players and coaches like Anju Bobby Georage, Shakti Singh , Radhakrishnan Nair and prominent professors like Prof. Mahesh Panchagnula, Dean, Alumni & Corporate Relations, IIT Madras and Dr. Bibhu Nayak, Director, NCSSR, SAI.
