India plans national sports medicine framework for 2036 Olympics bid

India is building a national sports medicine framework to shift athlete care from a fragmented, injury-driven system to a preventive model, as the country prepares for a possible 2036 Olympic Games bid. The proposal, reported by the Economic Times, aims to standardise injury screening, diagnosis, rehabilitation and return-to-play protocols while linking medical institutions with training programmes and creating a national repository on sports injury data.

The government is considering a phased rollout of the framework by 2028, and the proposal could be mentioned in the union budget 2027-28. NITI Aayog recently convened a meeting of the expert group on sports science under M Srinivas to deliberate on developing a cohesive, evidence-based sports science ecosystem, with officials from the ministries of youth affairs, health, ayush, the Indian Council of Medical Research and the Sports Authority of India attending.