TOPS: The Story Behind India's Olympics Medal Tally

For India, Tokyo 2020 has been a year of many firsts. While the country has won the most medals — seven — in a single Olympics so far, it has also seen Indian athletes make history. Before this, the 2012 London Olympics was our best performance, where India had won six medals.

At Tokyo 2020, India finished at the podium in six different sports: women's boxing, wrestling, weightlifting, men's hockey, badminton and athletics. Interestingly, all the medal winners had one thing in common: they were all part of the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS).

While the athletes deserve every possible praise, the role played by the central government's TOPS scheme in this unprecedented Olympic journey cannot be undermined, said former union sports minister Sarbananda Sonowal.

TOPS was launched in 2014 by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports (MYAS), with the goal of providing and facilitating specialised training and all sorts of assistance to select athletes with a focus on an Olympic medal.

To achieve this objective, an elite athlete identification committee was constituted to identify athletes from 'high-priority' sports, like archery, badminton, boxing, hockey and wrestling etc, who could achieve the Olympic podium. This scheme also includes select para-athletes, who are provided with holistic support to win medals at the Paralympics.

The first committee was constituted under the chairmanship of then MP and now Union Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports Anurag Thakur, and it comprised of eminent athletes (Pulella Gopichand, Rahul Dravid, Abhinav Bindra and Manisha Malhotra), administrators from the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and the MYAS.

The scheme provides not only direct financial support of Rs 50,000 per month to select athletes, but also includes foreign training, sports psychologists, physiotherapists, international competition, equipment and coaching camps.

The Covid-19 pandemic delayed the Tokyo Olympics by almost a year. It is noteworthy that amid the pandemic-induced lockdown, TOPS provided the necessary mechanism to support the athletes in their extended training sessions overseas in nations like Hungary, Sweden and the United States.

Sports require investments, not only in terms of money and resources, but also the emotional support and backing from both — the system and the nation. The Indian athletes received enormous support from the entire nation and witnessed an unprecedented enthusiasm of the government and its ministers. Fortunately, the Tokyo Olympics did give us many such moments to cherish and build upon for the future endeavours of Indian athletes.

The TOPS scheme still lags behind on certain fronts, like not providing opportunities to newcomers, discontinuing support for athletes who fail to qualify for the Olympics, delay in deliverance of crucial services etc. But despite the shortcomings, the recent success of TOPS athletes, not just in the Olympics but also at international levels like in Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games, proves that the TOPS is providing promising results.

If India is eyeing a double-digit medal haul at the next two Olympics, Paris (2024) and Los Angeles (2028), then an updated and improved TOPS is the need of the hour.