Shooter set to raise Olympic medal tally
OLYMPIC medallist Gagan Narang says he is focused on developing talent from grassroots level through his foundation to help India win as many medals as possible in shooting at the 2024 Olympics.
“My vision is to get the maximum number of Olympic medals in 2024 and beyond,” said the 2012 London Olympic bronze medallist.
“Earlier we used to focus on the elite shooters. Now we are focusing on the grass roots. So we are bridging the gap.”
The 34-year-old, who won bronze in the men’s 10m air rifle event, said his Gagan Narang Sports Promotion Foundation had started producing results, with trainees Shreya Agrawal and para-shooter Swaroop Unhalkar bagging a silver each at the recent 17th Kumar Surendra Singh Memorial Shooting Championships.
“As far as the results are concerned, we already have three shooters in the first year,” Narang said.
The Chennai-born shottist said that apart from training the shooters, the academy would also focus on guiding the trainers through the newly introduced Project Leap.
“We have three divisions of coaches – foreign, assistant and regional,” he said.
“Initially the assistant coaches will be trained under the foreign coaches and later the assistant coaches will give lessons to the regional coaches.”
Narang outlined the different parameters through which the shooters would be selected to train in the academy.
“We are selecting 23 youngsters in the programme based on different parameters, including neuro-cognitive and meta-cognitive.
“There have also been physical tests. Basically, we select shooters who have qualified in the national contests.” – IANS