New coach not happy about ‘unprepared’ shooting range

Sabi Hussain

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 22

India’s newly-appointed foreign rifle coach Oleg Mikhailov has raised concerns about the country’s organisational preparedness for the ISSF World Cup, beginning here on Friday. 

Mikhailov, who replaced Stanislav Lapidus, has expressed his displeasure at the ongoing work at the shooting range in the Karni Singh Shooting Complex where the finals of the championship will be held. 

According to Mikhailov, for whom the World Cup will be the first major assignment with the Indian team, the “unprepared” final range has robbed the country’s shooters of the home advantage. 

“The range is still not ready. People must understand that an important tournament like World Cup is happening, so the range should have been ready long before (for training). It doesn’t work perfectly for a home team,” Mikhailov told The Tribune.

“I know it’s a new experience for India to host a World Cup. I don’t know whether the people in India understand questions related to the organisation. I believe the people who have been preparing the range don’t have enough experience in this area,” he said. 

“The work should have started earlier. We, the coaches, don’t like it,” the Ukrainian added.

Mikhailov, who joined the team last week in Delhi, said the people associated with the organisational aspect of the World Cup should understand the enormity of the occasion.

“Look, I am just telling you the reality after what I saw. Yesterday, the range wasn’t ready. Today, it’s little better. Tomorrow is my rest day, but I will come to the venue specially to see what happens to the range and is it ready or not. They have time and I hope everything will be ready before the first final (on Friday),” said Mikhailov, who was the chief coach of the Brazilian pistol team at the Rio Olympics last year. 

Mikhailov, who will train Sanjeev Rajput, Tejaswini Sawant, Elizabeth Susan Koshy and Lajja Gauswami, reckoned that it would be a big challenge for him to manage the highly-talented Indian shooters.  “It’s been barely 10 days with the Indian team, so I can’t comment about the shooters. For me, Indian shooting team is very strong. They are world-class. I would be only polishing their technique.” 

“I haven’t worked with such a big shooting contingent in my coaching career earlier. Brazil as a country was big, but their shooting team was smaller. The Indian shooting is on the top of its game. It will be a big challenge for me as well,” he said.