Opinion: China thinks gold, India targets silver & bronze

"All I was thinking about was winning the gold medal," China's 28-year-old Su Bingtian said after setting the Asian Games record on the track.

Winning theGold medal defines a sportsman, and also a nation.

China began the 18th Asian Games winning seven golds on the first day, India has reached the seven-gold mark after over a week. India's may be competing against China in economic growth rate but in the gold medal hunt China has surprassed everyone, India is not even in the competition.

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China has already bagged 78 golds and is set to hit a "century" at the current Asian Games, India has won just 7 golds so far winning justone gold a day at an average.

The Chinese government had stayed away from Olympics for 24 years due to its spat over Taiwan being given national status, however, it decided to take part in the 1984 Olympics at Los Angeles and bang! it won 15 golds to finish 4th but way behind the United States which won 83 golds.

Just 24 years later at the Beijing Olympics, China surpassed the United States winning 51 golds, a feat which was mainly due to the triumph of its sporting system. India, on the other hand, has struggled at every point at the Olympics with only the hockey team standing out with 8 gold medals, however, India's last hockey gold was back in 1980 and after that the national sport almost disappeared from the nation's conscience.

India has won just 9 gold medals in the greatest sports stage on the planet. Abhinav Bindra beat his Chinese opponent at the Beijing Olympics to grab the first individual gold for the country. Just for the record, China has won 224 golds, with further 13 more golds at the Winter Olympics totalling 237 so far.

India finished 67th(tieing with Mongolia) in the last Olympics at Rio winning a silver and bronze, a disastrous show for the proud Indian contingent. India can no longer just participate and come back empty-handed. Some experts feel the country should stay away from the Olympicsaltogether for sometime, fix its broken system and then compete.

Winning golds is a philosophy engrained first in the system, then in the minds of athletes. It also means those who win silver often think they missed out on the top prize. China and US best exemplify the synergy between the system and the individual leading to rich gold medalhaul which has now become the envy of the world.

China's gold medal tally at the Olympics surged from 2000 Sydney Olympics when it won28 golds and culminated in Beijing where it won 48 golds, an historic achievement at home although it has since dipped slightly in the last two Olympics but the Communist state has still held its own finishing just below the US in London, and trailing by just one gold againstGreat Britain to finish third at Rio in 2016.

India as we already know has been plagued by bureaucratic delays, however, the gold medal mindset is India's Achilles heel with our athletes happy biting into silver and bronze medals followed by state gifts and media hype.

India has to find a way to "reject" the silver and bronze philosophy and concentrate on winning the top prize, for this it needs a "cultural change". The Indian contingent can longer claim silver and bronze as a "medal haul" and blame the system with officials blaming everything else.

A national system combined with corporate sponsorship at the grassroots level to scout and nurture talent would be a good start.

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)