when jeremy lalrinnunga won a weightlifting gold for india at the birmingham commonwealth games on monday cheers rang in the halls of punes army sports institute where he was first honed as an 11yearold in 2012 jeremys medal had once again proved that the institutes 21yearold plan to win at the olympics was workingthe 72acre asi in the middle of pune has world class infrastructure but its scouts who traverse the country looking for kids who may one day run faster dive deeper lift heavier and outlast all others are its secret sauce jeremy was their findwe saw him in his hometown near aizawl he seemed a good contender for the weightlifting group says naib subedar ld krishna who trains weightlifters at asi and was one of the coaches who picked jeremy for its boys sports company bsc a special sporting unit for under18 athletesachinta sheuli who won another weightlifting gold in the 73kg category at birmingham and london olympics boxer l devendro singh also cut their sporting teeth at the bsc neeraj chopra who won the javelin gold at last years olympics is an alumnus as well with a training facility named after him nowmission olympicswhile the sports authority of india and many private centres now train promising junior athletes asi was the first with a residential training centre for young boys back in 2001 when only china russia and some countries in the west had themasi commandant col devraj gill remembers how the institute was born after the then chief of army staff general s padmanabhan was asked if the indian army could do something for sports in the country we then went to work and conceptualised mission olympics to identify core disciplines where the army had a strong base and the medal probability at the olympics was high they started with wrestling weightlifting athletics boxing and archery and added fencing and diving later everything from diet to exercise training and discipline was then overhauled to build just one thing an asi thats a conveyor belt for talent that can win at the olympicswhen the institute realised mental blocks were costing athletes medals it introduced sports psychology training a few seconds of mental block became the difference between victory and defeat during the tokyo olympics we cant overcome this problem unless we train our athletes mentally too at very early stages says col gillthe institute also goes out of its way to nurture talent when dronacharyaawardee boxing coach bb mohanty brought a 9yearold boxer named l devendro singh from manipur he says they realised we had to get teachers for class iv schooling as we only had classes from class v at asi adjustments were made and singh went on to win a silver at the asian meet and participate at the london gamesbsc recruits are mostly from families of humble means says mohanty who retired in 2019 they get proper schooling along with sports training and their board and stay are taken care of some