Tokyo 2020: Due to logistical issues, only six coaches to travel with Indian shooting squad

Ronak Pandit, Oleg Mikhailov, and Samaresh Jung are among the six coaches travelling with the Indian shooting squad to the upcoming Tokyo Olympics.

Logistical hurdles arising out of the coronavirus situation came in the way of the National Rifle Association of India’s plans to rotate all its coaches during the Games.

Mikhailov, appointed in 2017, will be in charge of the rifle team along with Deepali Deshpande and Suma Shirur. Jung and Pandit will be training the pistol contingent comprising Saurabh Chadhary, Manu Bhaker, Abhishek Verma, Yashaswini Singh Deswal and Rahi Sarnobat.

Former India shooter Mansher Singh, chief coach of the Indian shotgun team, will be helping out skeet shooters – Angad Vir Singh Bajwa and Mairaj Ahmad Khan – Tokyo.

Apart from the coaches, also accompanying the team will be physiotherapist Zeinia Samar.

Jaspal Rana, a pistol ace of his time and one who has played an influential role in the emergence of talented young shooters in recent years, is not part of the travelling contingent and so is foreign pistol coach Pavel Smirnov.

Rana has been, of late, not training any Olympic-bound shooters and it was also felt that the team could do without the services of long-standing foreign coach, Smirnov, in Tokyo.

Members of the rifle and pistol team and their…

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