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NRAI chief Kalikesh Singh Deo aims for better coordination between personal and national coaches for shooters

The newly elected chief of the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) Kalikesh Singh Deo on Monday (September 30) stated that the federation will develop a "common minimum working plan" to reduce friction between personal and national coaches for shooters.

Notably, in the lead-up to the Paris Olympics 2024, NRAI had issues with strict do's and don'ts for personal coaches, causing tension, and the issue quickly took center stage. However, the NRAI was quick to resolve the issue just before the start of the Olympic Games.

While Manu Bhaker worked with Jaspal Rana during the Paris Olympics 2024, Swapnil Kusale, Sift Kaur Samra, Anjum Moudgil, and Arjun Babuta were associated with Deepali Deshpande. On the other hand, Aishwarya Pratap Singh Tomar had Joydeep Karmakar at the Games.

“The idea is to ensure that the personal coach and the national programme... national coaches work hand in hand. Because for 70 per cent of the time, the athlete is going to be with the personal coach. They’ll be in and out of the team,” Kalikesh Singh Deo told PTI.
“So, there is a dependency on the personal coach. And I don’t think we can completely do away with that. It’s our job to ensure that we come up with a common minimum working plan in the long run for all our athletes,” he added.
“A large part of the effort building up to the Olympics was in ensuring that the ecosystem between personal coaches and national coaches is smoothened out. It was better than what it was before,” he went on to state.

NRAI aims not to make drastic changes for the next Olympic cycle

Kalikesh Singh Deo also highlighted concerns about frequent changes in the Olympic Selection policy. Addressing the same, he stated that drastic amendments would be avoided but some necessary changes would be made for the next Olympic cycle.

It’s worth noting that the national association laid out a new Olympic selection policy after the conclusion of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. However, the policy was amended a couple of times in the run-up to the recently concluded Paris Olympics.

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