NEW DELHI: A globe-trotting steel billionaire and two former world champions are determined to prove there is more to Indian sport than the nation’s obsession with cricket.

While cricketers make huge money, sportspersons from other disciplines have struggled for funds and world-class training facilities to realise their dream of winning an Olympic medal.

But two separate initiatives, one by steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal and the other a joint effort by former All-England badminton champion Prakash Padukone and billiards great Geet Sethi, will break new ground at Beijing.

Mittal, whom Forbes lists as the fourth richest man in the world with a personal fortune of 45 billion dollars, kickstarted the campaign in 2005 to ensure a brighter future for India’s Olympic sportspersons.

Disappointed at India’s lone medal at the Athens Games, the industrialist put aside 10 million dollars to promote sporting excellence in the country through the Mittal Champions Trust.

Mittal hoped at least 10 of the Trust’s 32 beneficiaries will qualify for Beijing. Three years on, 13 have made the grade with a promise they are not going to the Olympics just to make up the numbers.

“We have taken care of all their needs,” the Trust’s administrator Manisha Malhotra told AFP. “These include training, competitive exposure, physios, fitness and dietary supplements.”

Archer Mangal Singh, who shot birds with bows and arrows in his remote village of Ichakuti in Jharkand state, was picked up in February, 2006 and sent to the Trust’s training centre near Bangalore.

Last month, Singh, 24, repaid that faith by helping India win the men’s recurve team event in the World Cup held in Antalya, Turkey.

The shooters who joined the Trust were sent abroad for training and assured of quality ammunition that was so scarce in India that the country’s federation threatened to boycott the Olympics.

Padukone and Sethi, tired of cricket’s monopoly in the corporate sector, joined hands with like-minded businessmen in 2006 to launch the Olympic Gold Quest Foundation to help medal hopefuls.

The Foundation will sponsor rifle shooter Gagan Narang at the Olympics, one of India’s few medal contenders after winning a bronze at the World Cup in Beijing in April.

“I am really grateful to the Gold Quest,” said Narang. “The feeling that someone is there to support you all the way is sometimes enough to make the difference.”

India’s federal sports budget this year is a modest 280 million dollars, less than half of the 724 million dollars eight franchises paid for owning cricket teams in an unofficial Twenty20 competition in May-June.

India, whose Olympic success has been defined by eight field hockey golds till 1980, has won just four individual medals, the best being shooter Rajyavardhan Rathore’s silver at Athens.

Sethi, a six-time world professional billiards champion, said he was confident India’s Olympic goals will match the hysteria that cricket creates.

“I have found that emotional and patriotic sentiments are high in India when it comes to raising funds for the elusive Olympic individual gold,” Sethi told AFP.

“After all, the sporting culture of any nation is not defined by the mass hysteria generated by a single team event such as football or cricket or baseball, but by the country’s performance in Olympic sports.”