Federation trains guns on coaches
Tokyo, July 27: The Indian shooting federation on Tuesday promised an “overhaul” of the coaching staff after the 15-strong contingent’s Olympic campaign moved from one disaster to another here, the sport trending on social media for all the wrong reasons, including intrasquad factionalism.
As the country’s shooters continued to belie expectations with their horror show here, reliving the Rio 2016 debacle, the head of the sport’s national governing body promised a major revamp in coaching and support staff.
“Definitely the performances have not been on expected lines and I have spoken of an overhaul of coaching and support staff,” National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) Raninder Singh said.
“I feel something is lacking in getting our shooters prepared for these big occasions, because clearly the talent is there and we have seen it here as well,” the NRAI boss said.
He said the federation and other stakeholders concerned did everything they could to help prepare the shooters for the Games, including implementing the recommendations of the panel led by Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra after the disastrous medalless campaign in Rio de Janeiro five years ago.
The NRAI got former India shooter and coach Ronak Pandit to train medal hope Manu Bhaker after she fell out with junior national coach Jaspal Rana, and the president said he tried to sort things out between the two of them.
On Tuesday, Bhaker’s new coach Ronak Pandit uploaded a facebook video detailing the pistol malfunction that marred her
● The National Rifle Association of India got former India shooter and coach Ronak Pandit to train medal hope Manu Bhaker after she fell out with junior national coach Jaspal Rana, and president Raninder Singh said he tried to sort things out between the two.
10m individual event performance.
He explained how Bhaker would have struggled by using the spare pistol or going for a repair of the broken one as the equipment repair room was far off from the competition area.
“You think her heart rate would have been stable after walking so much to get the gun repaired. Which idiot is saying that?” Pandit stated.
“As for the spare pistol, her previous coach had changed the grip of that pistol, she was not comfortable with it and that is why she stuck to the one which malfunctioned,” he added, alluding to Jaspan Rana, laying bare, the dissension in the team.
However, Raninder said that not all is still lost for the Indian shooting team as it is left with a few more starts.
“Having said that we still have starts left and let’s continue to back the team and I am sure we’ll get results. Postmortems can wait till after the Games,” Raninder said.
The Indians found it hard to believe that their shooters failed to finish on the podium in the mixed team events, considered the country’s best bet prior to the Games. —