Top coaches bicker over teenage shooter’s training

NEW DELHI: International trap shooter Vivaan Kapoor’s father has complained to the national shooting body of “harassment” of the teenager by the shotgun chief coach, Mansher Singh, after an incident at the Karni Singh Ranges here on Wednesday.

Vikram Kapoor has alleged that Mansher confronted the shooter’s personal coach, Kuwait’s Khaled Al Mudhaf, while he was supervising practice of the teenager, who is India No 4 in senior and had won gold in the Asian junior championships last November. The letter alleged it was an attempt to disturb his 18-year-old son’s focus with the national selection trials starting on Monday to pick shooters for competitions, starting with the World Cup in March.

However, National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) president, Raninder Singh, blamed poor communication by the shooter’s camp. The federation must be informed when a foreign coach is hired privately, and it inform Sports Authority of India (SAI) and its executive director-teams, who monitors the training programme of elite athletes.

“We got a letter from Vivaan’s father on December 15 that they have appointed a foreign coach. But it didn’t specify whether he would be coaching in SAI ranges run by government,” Raninder said. “NRAI doesn’t have any objection, but there is a formality for foreign experts. Had they informed us of Vivaan training at the Karni Singh Ranges, such an argument could have been avoided,” he added.

Vikram, in his complaint to NRAI, said Mansher objected to the training times of the shooter. “My son was training with his personal coach away from the playing/shooting area … Mansher went to Vivaan and started shouting at him and threatening him,” he said in the letter.

“Mansher also started taking videos of Vivaan and mentally harassing my son. He then started fighting with Khaled about his legality in India.”

Vikram said the documents needed to allow Khaled to train his son were in order, alleging Mansher was upset as he had dropped him as his son’s personal coach.

Mansher denied the allegations. “The coach and shooter were on the field of play and being the chief coach, I asked him to vacate the area. But the foreign coach was rude. Foreign coaches using the ranges for private coaching should inform NRAI and SAI. There is a protocol. I wasn’t aware of the time of training and politely told them to move out as others were waiting.”

On giving private lessons to the shooter, which nationals coaches are not allowed to, Mansher said it was before he took over as chief coach last year.