NEW DELHI: The Archery Association of India and the sports ministry have been discussing the way forward with regards to India’s recurve archers and the selection trials for the 2021 Olympics. While no concrete decision has been taken at this stage, October has been tentatively suggested as the best time to conduct the trials.
A change in venue is also possible with Pune currently a hotspot for the coronavirus. The Army Sports Institute also has a lodging-related issue. The Tata Archery Academy in Jamshedpur has been mooted as a possible venue. The other option is SAI Sonepat. But that also involves transit via Delhi.“These are all provisional of course as nobody can predict what may transpire in the near future. But we have been trying to plan long-term and are keeping our options open. The sports ministry have really been proactive in their help for all federations in terms of planning for the future,” an AAI official told this daily on the condition of anonymity. Earlier, the trials were supposed to be held on March 24 and 25.
There have been no talks on formulating the national calendar till now. April was earlier zeroed in on as the ideal time to conduct nationals in all age categories, but the COVID-19 pandemic has put those plans on hold. In all likelihood, a decision will only be taken once the entire situation clears up. The AAI had also announced plans of conducting an Indian Archery League but due to the pandemic, talks have not progressed. “We had meetings with a couple of agencies and broadcasters before the lockdown but there has been no progress on that front. Obviously, there are more pressing concerns for us at this time,” the official added.
Online coaching
AAI, in consultation with the ministry, has come up with an online coach training programme. The module will run for a month with daily classes for an hour. The workshop titled “Train the trainer” was supposed to start from Tuesday but has now been postponed till April 16.
Both Indian as well as foreign coaches will take these special classes. Indian coaches include Dronacharya awardees Sanjeeva Singh and Purnima Mahato while former European champion Pascal Colmaire is also scheduled to conduct a class. Apart from basics, a variety of topics like mental conditioning, nutrition and even bio mechanics will be touched upon.
There are also plans to hold special classes for archers as well.
“We wanted to have a special module for coaches and this was the result. We have postponed the launch so that we can have an even wider reach. We have plans for archers and technical officials as well. We want to involve everybody during this lockdown and we are hopeful of reaching a wide audience in the days to come,” AAI secretary Pramod Chandurkar said.