‘Video games helping young shooters master their craft’
COACH’S ADVICE Mansher Singh believes it helps teenagers reduce reaction time during competition
The kids need to be protected in order to build their selfconfidence. I cannot throw a shooter who is from a rural background to the world to go and train with a foreign coach.
MANSHER SINGH, Indian shotgun coach
Commonwealth Games gold in 1994 at Victoria, says regular involvement and interaction with those who have won international medals has helped the juniors immensely. “In fact that’s become the norm. Junior shooters are being trained by ‘iconic champions’ and that, in turn, is giving them the motivation to win, to perform as well, or better their idols,” says Mansher.
The second-most important factor, he says, is the availability of guns and ammunition. “A 12-year-old who achieves a ‘renowned shot’ score becomes eligible to import a gun and ammunition. And, within 2-3 years, he makes it to the national junior or senior squad and starts contesting for medals at interna- tional events,” says the senior team coach.
For him, another key ingredient to producing champions is to train them with the senior team. “The juniors who make it to the national squad must compete at the senior level. That is something I have enforced since the junior training programme for shotgun shooting came into being in 2014,” he said.
For Mansher, who competed in his first Olympic Games (1984 Los Angeles) as an 18-year-old and whose last quadrennial Games were the 2008 Beijing Olympics, says that being able to understand the young shooters coming from humble backgrounds, and with limited exposure, is what’s making Indian coaches so successful.
“Foreign coaches are not able to fill that part. They (kids) need to be protected in order to build their self-confidence. I cannot throw a shooter who is from a rural background and with very limited exposure to the world to go and train with a foreign coach.
“The way these children are brought up in India, it’s more of a hands-on approach of parents. I try to simulate that same hands-on relationship with the kids, their likes and dislikes. The other day Shardul wanted to have baked beans for dinner. I took him out so that he could have his fill. Kids will be kids and a foreign coach will not understand that. You have to treat them like children, yet give them the aptitude of an Olympic-level athlete, that’s what we want to achieve,” concludes Mansher.