It has been my opinion and belief that an Indian coach is always a better choice than a coach from overseas. In few of my earlier articles, I had strongly recommended an Indian coach for our cricket team and fortunately we had an Indian there. I always wondered why the Indian government was spending Indian money in dollars to get our athletes coached. To me, coaching is a natural flair which can be possesed by anyone immaterial of caste, colour or creed. In the light of all the hungama we somewhere forgot to highlight the contribution of Indian coaches who have played a large role to get glory for our country through their trainees. Let us study the top three cases of achievers at Rio which will prove to be an eye opener for our Government and Sports Authority.
Pusarla Venkata Sindhu the silver medal winner at Rio is a prodigy of Pullela Gopi Chand who has been training her from very early age.
Sakshi Malik Bronze medallist at the Rio Games has been trained and mentored by Mr Ishwar Dahiya from the age of 12, her achievement of winning the medal at Olympic can easily be dedicated to her coach who faced lots of opposition from local community for teaching a girl wrestling which is a men’s sport in their village.
Dipa Kamarakar who came closest to the podium in Olympics in her discipline in India is a gymnast who won millions of hearts although she missed the podium. She has been brought up and trained like his own child by Bisweshwar Nandi an Indian coach who has been working with her since the age of 6. According to records she had flat foot but the training by the Indian coach helped her to overcome her shortcoming.
In the light of all the hungama we somewhere forgot to highlight the contribution of Indian coaches who have played a large role to get glory for our country through their trainees. Let us study the top three cases of achievers at Rio which will prove to be an eye opener for our Government and Sports Authority.
This performance of our Indian coaches should be taken as an opportunity by authorities and more and more Indian coaches and Academies should be promoted and supported by the Government. Since many players like Dipa and Sakshi go unnoticed because they are not spotted by their respective coaches.
If budding talents can be spotted by these coaches we can have a larger talent pool taking us higher in the medal tally in International Games.
Various government agencies have been announcing crores and BMW for players but somewhere they have forgotten these “Strengths of Pillars” who have really worked hard with on their players. These coaches should be awarded and rewarded not only by money and a piece of land but they should be included in future plans.
I specially salute Mr Dahiya and Mr Nandi who without having international exposures have trained their players to compete at the highest level. The country solutes to Indian Coaches for their performance at Rio.
Hemanshu Chaturvedi is a sports guru.