Athletic coaches hit back at Bahadur Singh

Patiala, May 23 (UNI) Stung by the vitriolic comment by Athletic Federation of India (AFI) chief coach Bahadur Singh, a number of athletic coaches here maintain that the country has outstanding coaches capable of producing world class athelets.

Bahadur Singh had told press reporters in Kolkata on the eve of Federation Cup that "there is no good enough coach in the country -including himself ---who can produce athletes to bring home medals from top-notch events like Olympics," The national athletic coaches have not taken it lightly. Such comments, said a national athletic coach, maintaining anonymity, can only demoralize the Indian coaches beyond comprehension.

Bahadur Singh is all for the foreign coaches, though he forgets that the foreign coaches, who get thick pay packets in India, have failed to deliver the goods over the years. So much so that the Indian men athletes could not win a single gold medal in athletics in Doha Asian Games last December, which put every Indian to shame.

Bahadur Singh further says: "I have to admit that I have not been able to produce a single shot putter who can glorify the country by winning a medal in the Olympics. It is a reality that our efforts have helped athletes win medals only in the Asian Games or similar level Asian championships." "Considering this issue we need to increase the number of quality foreign coaches, who should be working here event-wise. They should be given adequate time to prepare the country's promising athletes.

And on this matter, the AFI is moving in the right direction".

Presently, there are five foreign coaches, two masseurs and a recovery expert, from Ukraine, Belarus and Poland. And still the AFI is trying to hire foreign coaches for High Jump, Shot Put and Sprint events. The intention and purpose of AFI is a mystery in view of dismal performance by the foreign athletic coaches now in India.

Talking to UNI, Dronacharya awardee J S Saini, said that India has some very talented athletic coaches and they are quite capable of producing world class athletes, provided they work hard, update themselves and have a set target.

India has produced world class athletes like, Milkha Singh, Gurbachan Singh Randhawa, Mohinder Singh Gill, Sriram Singh, Shivnath Singh, Praveen Kumar, Suresh Babu, P T Usha, Bobby Anju George -all trained by the Indian coaches.

The AFI aught to be a bit more realistic and pragmatic in its approach in order to encourage the Indian coaches, particularly in view of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in India, rather than demoralize them to the extent of killing their passion and zeal to train athletes for mega events.

UNI