Manu Bhaker and Saurav Chaudhary should move to senior category now, says Jaspal Rana

SportsCafe Desk
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India’s Junior pistol coach Jaspal Rana has stated that both Manu Bhaker and Saurav Chaudhary should start shooting in the senior category if they aim to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics. Recently, all the shooters of the Indian contingent won medals at the Youth Olympics held in Buenos Aires.

India had not won any gold medals at the Youth Olympics before the 2018 event. In the 2018 Youth Olympics, however, India bagged three gold medals out of which two were the courtesy of Indian shooters. In fact, out of the total 13 medals India bagged four through the shooters.

Jaspal Rana is the lead at the National Rifle Association of India's (NRAI) junior programme led by its president Raninder Singh. Rana also explained that apart from producing young prodigies the program is striving for excellence in shooting for the country.

“Whoever performs should be in the team. Half of the people will shoot in junior (tournaments) only once in a lifetime. This was the only chance they (Bhaker and Chaudhary) had of competing in the Youth Olympic Games. You have to organise your calendar that way. From now on, they should be shooting in senior (tournaments only) to seal Olympic quotas. At the end of this year, we have Asian Championships with most Olympic quota places on offer. For that, anyone shooting big scores should be there (in the team). For now, the quota place matters, not the medal” Rana told Timesofindia.com

Jaspal Rana also stated that the Junior programme has been a total success and it is also pushing the seniors to improve their performance.

“I think it's 100 per cent due to the success of this junior programme. It not only pushed the junior and youth shooters but also the seniors. When there's someone snapping at your heels, you find the capacity to run faster, the same way as athletes (runners). If you see their timings, like 100m, from when the Olympics started, people have improved tremendously. Everybody is trying different ways of doing it (improving). Because of this programme, both youth and junior (shooters) pushed each other, as well as the seniors. So now most of the time the juniors are in the main teams. It's a win-win situation."

Rana started winning medals at a very young age. He had four Asian Games gold medals and many commonwealth games medals but did not find any favour with the awards like Khel Ratna given by the government. Even proving his mettle as a coach, a Dronacharya Award too eludes him.

“I don't work for anybody, I don't work for awards. If I did not get the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna after winning four Asian Games gold and 18 CWG medals, then I definitely had no chance of winning the Dronacharya Award”.

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