National camp for paddlers ends
The first-ever official national camp of senior Indian table tennis team members under the long-term development programme of the Sports Authority of India came to an end at the Netaji Subash SAI Sub-Centre here in the city on Thursday.
Two top stars of the Indian squads, including Olympian and triple gold medallist at the Commonwealth Games Achanta Sharath Kamal and Anthony Amalraj were the major absentees in the 17-day camp as the two were reportedly busy with their inter national assignments.
“The two had informed us about their absence in advance and I don’t feel that it made any big difference to their preparations for the future events,” team’s assistant coach JS Bisht told HT on Thursday.
But some others in the team believe that presence of seniors players like Sharath Kamal could have made a big difference to the juniors in terms of experience. “Practice with seniors like Sharath could have benefitted the juniors as the camp was a big opportunity for them to gain experience of rubbing shoulders with top play- ers,” said another official. “I believe that from the next time two more youngsters should be inducted in the camp in place of absentees so that they could get exposure as well as experience,” he added.
Now for over the next two months, all the campers would be busy playing in their zonal matches in the domestic circuits, before leaving to take part in the 3rd Lusofonia Games at Goa from November 30 to October 10. This would be followed by official national championships of all age categories like cadet, youth, sub-junior, junior, senior and inter-state till January next.