Indian pistol shooters likely to be without their coaches at Tokyo Olympics
Follow Us
Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Chaudhary
The Indian shooting team are flying to Croatia for a tournament and subsequent practice camp, for the next two months ahead of the Tokyo Olympics. Interestingly, the coaches of the pistol shooters, one of India’s brightest medal hopes, will not be accompanying them. We might even see the pistol shooters without their coaches at the Games.
The shooters include Manu Bhaker, Saurabh Chaudhary and Abhishek Verma. And the coaches in question are Jaspal Rana, Ronak Pandit and Samaresh Jung. The National Rifle Association of India‘s (NRAI) move to relocate the shooting squad to Croatia for better training and avoiding the health risk in India is appreciable, the absence of the coaches in such a hour could back fire.
“We’ve been sent mails by the federation thanking us for our services,” one of the coaches was quoted by ESPN, “so it’s perhaps fair to presume that we’re not needed anymore. Anyway, if we are out of the equation for the next two months, it’ll perhaps be no better than traveling to Tokyo as spectators.“
Just two pistol coaches, Pavel Smirnov and Ved Prakash, will be traveling to Zagreb. In addition, seven rifle coaches, four physiotherapists and two physical trainers too will make the trip.
“The coaches in question didn’t want to be away from their families,” Raninder Singh
Meanwhile, NRAI president Raninder Singh shares that the coaches are unwilling to leave their families in these tough times. He further adds that the federation will be getting in touch with the shooters to know whether the three coaches are required to fly in for the Games. Singh shares that the bio-bubble breach during the Shoot World Cup prompted NRAI to sanction the move.
“The coaches in question didn’t want to be away from their families at this point, so we respect that,” Singh told ESPN. “But we still have to think of the rest of the team. Though we’d initially decided to camp in the capital, we realized that it’s a huge risk given the worsening virus scenario. Despite our best efforts, there was a bio-bubble breach at the World Cup and also the para shooters, who recently held a camp in New Delhi, reported around 4-5 positive cases. To protect our shooters, we have to get them out of here. There’s no other option.“
He explains that the raging pandemic in the country would have had only hampered the training of the shooters. NRAI earlier had plans of holding a camp at the national capital. Singh feels that travelling to a less affected country will put them in a better mental state and facilitates their training for the biggest event of their career.
“Moving to a country with lesser cases will put our shooters at ease mentally and they will at least have some sort of freedom,” Singh adds, “It’s unfair to ask the kids to train the whole day and then have them to stay put in their 10×10 rooms the rest of the time. We would have had to do it for over two months straight had we gone ahead with the Delhi plan. Even without having to look at this year’s IPL example, I’m certain it’s the right call. We can’t help it if a few don’t agree.“
Of the 15 shooters traveling for the Games, Chaudhary is seen as the brightest prospect for an individual medal in the 10m pistol event. Bhaker will compete in three events – 10m air pistol, 25m pistol and 10m air pistol mixed team (with Chaudhary) in Tokyo.
Stay Updated!
Anshuman Mahapatra
(1496 Articles Published)