‘They just want to forget long jump, sprint is easy’

A conversation with Carl Lewis just flows - effortlessly as he speaks with an infectious energy.

- Avishek Roy

Even after more than two decades since his retirement from international athletics, the legend's aura remains intact. A nine-time Olympic gold medallist, Lewis conquered the 100m, 200m, 4x100m relay, and, of course, the long jump.

Sharp, direct, and animated even in the early hours on Friday, he showed no trace of fatigue despite arriving from the United States late on Thursday evening. He is on a trip to India as brand ambassador for Vedanta Delhi half marathon.

From reminiscing about his glory days of record-breaking jumps and sprints to opening up on his fierce rivalry with Mike Powell, Lewis also spoke about the state of track and field today.

In his own words, "From a financial standpoint and in terms of global relevance, the sport has unfortunately gone backwards." Excerpts

How was the journey to India? It was easy, coming from.

Houston, just one stop. I have been to India before, about 10 times.

India now has an Olympic medallist in athletics in Neeraj Chopra. What do you think India needs to do in terms of nurturing talent to see that they go to the world level? Access. You have to give kids access. You're going to have to go into and create programmes. In the US, we have AAU programmes for kids-18 and under --all over the country. Then we have university programmes, and then we go to the next level.

They're (India) going to have to put together programmes, whether it's in schools, clubs, universities, they're going to have to put all those systems together to give the talent access to opportunity. They're going to have to invest in that. India is a huge country with a tremendous number of people. And if they all had an opportunity, just think of the success.