“It takes just 6 gm of gold to lift a nation,” said Viren Rasquinha, Arjuna awardee, former captain of the Indian hockey team and a member of the 2004 Indian contingent to the Athens Olympics, at IIM Ahmedabad as part of the How to Start a Start-up (HTSAS) 2.0 series.
The HTSAS series was launched in 2016 with a vision to impart the experiences and learnings of seasoned entrepreneurs and investors to the entire country. Rasquinha is currently the CEO of Olympic Gold Quest — the brainchild of celebrated sportsmen Prakash Padukone and Geet Sethi, started with the mission to help Indian athletes win gold medals in the Olympics. With around 145 athletes currently being trained in six sports, the organisation has nurtured five of the last eight medal winners of India in the Olympics including the star of the 2016 Rio Olympics — badminton silver-medallist PV Sindhu.
Hard work
Speaking of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Rasquinha recalled watching Leander Paes taking the podium with the tricolour rising in the background. This inspired him to captain the Indian team and win a medal in the Olympics. He joined Olympic Gold Quest in 2009 after doing an MBA at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad.
Citing the examples of Mary Kom, Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu, Rasquinha spoke about the most important quality he found in all these athletes. “They will run through a brick wall every single day if required. The hard work and long hours they put in, which the world is not aware of, is what makes these athletes successful.”
Influence of hockey
Rasquinha spoke about the three significant lessons he learnt through sports. His one-year stint with the Stuttgart Kickers in the German Bundesliga taught him the importance of the right team environment for talent to flourish. He talked about contrasting training styles, and how it motivated him to give his best at all times, be it at practice, team meetings or in matches. In a team environment, every single member has a unique and essential role to play, he added. Joking that although goal scorers in sports like hockey and football get most the attention, he emphasised the value of every single member on any team.
Rasquinha ended the session with a short story about how a senior coach once told him that he would never make it big in hockey and how this conversation doubled his grit and determination to achieve his goals. “Potential and possibilities in this time and age are immense,” he concluded, adding that the choice rests with us and we always have the option of putting in our best foot forward and working towards achieving our goals.