CHENNAI: THE elite Indian shooters have been looking to attain maximal returns in their ongoing Croatia tour with the Tokyo Olympics in the back of their minds. With not many competitions in the last year, the Indian contingent who are based in Zagreb, also had the chance to test their mettle at the European Championships in Osijek last month. Now, they’ll return to Osijek for a dress rehearsal before Tokyo.
They’ll be looking to implement what they’ve assimilated over the last few weeks or so and gauge where they stand when they take part in the ISSF World Cup, which is scheduled to be held from June 22 to July 3. “The standard of shooting in training is quite high. Entire team training together adds to the competitiveness and boosts the morale of shooters. The difficulty level is increased daily to test their skills under pressure and to test their endurance and they are raising their game up for all challenges we designed for them,” Deepali Deshpande, India rifle high performance coach, said.
A solid performance in the World Cup could prove to be an ideal platform ahead of the Olympics. “The World Cup gives us an opportunity to test our preparations. It will help in planning the last phase of preparations before the team departs to Tokyo,” the Olympian, who predominantly takes care of rifle shooter Anjum Moudgil, added.
In their quest to keep them in competitive mode, the coaches had recently conducted intra-squad/inter-squad matches, inviting teams like Croatia and Slovenia for the latter. The idea behind those matches was to keep the shooters’ mind sharp. India high performance manager Ronak Pandit, who’s mainly keeping an eye on pistol ace Manu Bhaker’s progress, said those sessions have been beneficial. “It is important to keep devising new and interesting methods of training to keep the focus sharp and not let complacency set it. Shooting is a monotonous sport so we have to balance pure technical training with some tactical training.”