Gold Quest International

Is India's Olympic quest undermined by underinvestment?

While India's government has pledged to chase Olympic success and improve on the country's record of nine gold medals in 52 years, the USD 58 million investment it hopes will bring glory in London next year is being viewed as inadequate for a country of 1.2 billion people.

Those fears were compounded when the country's sports budget for 2011-12 was slashed to 11.21 billion rupees (USD 250 million) from Rs 35.64 billion in the last budget.

By contrast, Australia has earmarked some USD 700 million over four years for its preparation for the London Games despite having superior sports infrastructure.

"The decrease in budget allocation for this year is a matter of concern for us," sports minister Ajay Maken told the Indian Express newspaper recently.

"The amount allocated will be made optimum use of, but I do agree that more is needed for proper training."

Private initiatives such as the Mittal Champions Trust (MCT) and Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ) aim to bridge the funding gap.

"I believe India is capable of producing world class champions at sports, just like it is producing top class professionals in information technology, engineering, medicine, and business," Amit Bhatia, founder of MCT, which aids around 30 athletes, told Reuters in an e-mail.

"What is lacking is the funds needed to nurture this talent or the accessibility to infrastructure and support mechanisms that other international athletes are provided with.

"What MCT is doing is levelling the playing field," said Bhatia, who along with his industrialist father-in-law Lakshmi Mittal, launched the trust with an eye on the London Olympics.

"It was launched with the simple plan: to identify talented athletes and provide them the best training, nutrition and supporting infrastructure to win medals on the world stage, especially London Olympics.

"Our panel (of experts) identifies sportspersons with the potential to succeed at the international level and identifies gaps that must be bridged to take (their) performance to the next level.

"MCT then bridges these gaps and provides whatever support is required for each athlete to help them succeed at international sporting events, like the Olympics."

Rifle shooter Abhinav Bindra, who won India's only individual Olympic gold in Beijing in 2008, is one of MCT's beneficiaries.

Former billiards world champion Geet Sethi and All-England badminton winner Prakash Padukone also realised there was a funding gap and set up OGQ, which supports 25 athletes.

BULLETIN: Gold Quest International (GQI) UPLINE/DOWNLINE Groups ...

Upline and downline networks within Gold Quest International (GQI), a bizarre company taken down by the SEC just three months before the U.S. Secret Service raid on AdSurfDaily in 2008, are in the news in the Canadian province of Ontario.

The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) will conduct a hearing March 24 to consider taking provincial action against local promoters of GQI, which already has been ruled a Ponzi scheme, pyramid scheme and “sham” investment by the Alberta Securities Commission.

OSC pointed out that GQI “has never been registered in any capacity with the Commission” and alleged that its promoters within the province also were not registered.