The Infosys Foundation and GoSports Foundation have taken a significant step forward in India’s high-performance sports ecosystem by expanding their athlete sponsorship programme from Girls for Gold to the more inclusive Gear for Gold.
The move marks an evolution from a targeted, women-centric initiative to a broader, system-driven model that now supports male, female and para-athletes across six Olympic disciplines, while sharply focusing on long-term institutional capacity building rather than short-term individual sponsorships .
Launched originally in 2022, Girls for Gold was designed to address gender-specific gaps in access to elite training and competition for promising Indian women athletes. Its success laid the foundation for a larger vision one that recognises that sustainable excellence in sport depends not only on individual talent, but on the quality of training environments, coaching expertise, sports science integration and governance structures. Gear for Gold represents this strategic pivot, expanding both scale and scope with the aim of creating durable high-performance ecosystems across India.
At the heart of Gear for Gold is an “academy-first” approach. Rather than focusing primarily on individual athlete grants, the programme channels investment into leading sports academies, upgrading infrastructure, integrating modern sports science practices, and strengthening coaching and support systems. This model ensures that the benefits of funding extend beyond a single cohort of athletes and continue to impact future generations training within the same ecosystem.
The programme will focus on six sporting disciplines: badminton, table tennis, weightlifting, boxing, athletics and shooting. These sports have been carefully selected, reflecting a mix of India’s traditional medal strengths such as shooting, boxing and weightlifting and disciplines like badminton, table tennis and athletics, where the talent pool has grown rapidly at the junior and sub-junior levels.
By concentrating resources in these areas, Gear for Gold aims to maximise medal conversion potential at major international events, including the Olympics and Paralympics.
Athletes training at supported academies will receive comprehensive backing that goes far beyond competition expenses. This includes scholarships, access to high-level coaching, funding for national and international exposure, structured nutrition plans, and injury prevention and management support. Importantly, the initiative also recognises that athlete performance is inseparable from the quality of the support ecosystem around them.
Capability building for coaches and support staff forms a central pillar of the programme, with structured workshops, certifications, conclaves and opportunities for global exposure embedded into the model.
A key feature of the expanded initiative is its emphasis on para-athletes, bringing them fully into the high-performance framework alongside able-bodied athletes. This inclusion reflects a progressive understanding of sporting excellence, ensuring that elite para-sport talent receives access to the same institutional resources, scientific support and professional pathways as Olympic athletes.
The Gear for Gold network currently works through eight partner academies across the six disciplines. Five of these—Lakshya Shooting Club, Mary Kom Regional Boxing Foundation, Raman Table Tennis High Performance Centre, Sathish Sivalingam Sports Foundation (weightlifting) and Yadav Pro Badminton Academy—have been part of the collaboration since 2022.
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The expanded phase has added three renowned institutions: the Usha School of Athletics, the Karnam Malleswari Foundation for weightlifting, and the Malik Badminton Academy. The selection of academies led by globally recognised Indian sporting legends reduces governance risk while ensuring that decision-making is anchored in lived high-performance experience.
Early results suggest that the institutional approach is already paying dividends. Athletes supported within this ecosystem have delivered consistent results at junior international competitions, an important indicator of future senior-level success. These performances validate the programme’s focus on marginal gains advanced equipment, data-driven training, recovery protocols and competition planning that often determine the difference between participation and podium finishes at elite level .
From a governance standpoint, the programme incorporates robust systems for monitoring, reporting and due diligence, reflecting corporate CSR standards applied to sport philanthropy. This focus on transparency and measurable outcomes is critical in ensuring accountability, particularly as investments shift from individuals to institutions where impact must be assessed over longer timelines.
The expanded Gear for Gold initiative stands out not merely for its inclusivity, but for its strategic clarity. By investing in academies rather than isolated athletes, Infosys Foundation and GoSports Foundation are addressing one of Indian sport’s most persistent challenges the lack of consistently world-class training environments.
While details on the overall financial corpus remain undisclosed, the structure itself offers a scalable blueprint for how private philanthropy can drive systemic, measurable change.
As India looks towards future Olympic and Paralympic cycles, Gear for Gold positions itself as a quiet but potentially transformational force one that strengthens the foundations of excellence, ensuring that talent is not lost due to gaps in infrastructure, science or support, but instead is fully equipped to chase gold on the world stage.
