Olympic silver medallist Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore Thursday said if India wanted to do well at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, it should immediately pick a team from athletes performing well at the international level.

"It's too short a time to select from a large base. You have to select those who are doing well at the international level," Rathore, India's lone medallist at the 2004 Athens Olympics, said while delivering the monthly talk at the India Habitat Centre here.

"And for the 2012 Olympics, we should start right now and finish the selection in 2007. We should support the 16-year-olds like the (way I was supported)," said Rathore, a major in the Indian Army.

Referring to the 2012 Olympics, he said authorities should take complete control of the selected 16-year-olds, "give them jobs and take care of everything that they want", if India was to do well seven years from now.

Rathore, who will turn 35 on Jan 29, spoke on the importance of the will to win, which he said was more important than skill.

"The will must be stronger that the skill because it's the will that wins," he asserted.

Rathore said that if someone had the will, he could overcome adversity.

"Adversity shows you the way to success. It opens two doors for us - one that leads to success and the other leading to failure," he said, noting that a more strong-willed person would go through the first door.

Rathore himself is a good example of someone who with strong will.

Disclosing that he always wanted to play an outdoor sport, he said he desperately wanted to excel - and then gave the example of former Wimbledon tennis champion Boris Becker of Germany.

"I must have been in Class 10 or 11 when I saw Becker winning the Wimbledon title, but I was not happy - because I was just about three years younger to him and did not see myself reaching there," said Rathore, who played cricket until he was selected for the National Defence Academy (NDA).

"I went to the NDA and my cricket ended there because the army does not encourage sports at the officer-level," he said.

Called "Chilly" by friends for his cool temperament, Rathore chose rifle shooting instead of actively being involved in the army, when he was given a choice.

And he went on to win many international competitions, including the gold medal at the 2002 Commonwealth Games.

Nattily dressed, Rathore pointed out that one should conserve energy. "Every person has limited energy, so one should conserve it and unleash it at the right time," he said, as 50-odd people listened in rapt attention.

It was a motley group, comprising people of all ages and including a paediatrician who brought her eight-year-old son, that came to the Gulmohar auditorium at the India Habitat Centre to listen to Rathore.