The shooting contingent is one of the strongest points for India going into the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and shooting coach Jaspal Rana feels that not putting pressure on the young shooters will go a long way in ensuring that they perform to their best later in the year.
Indian shooters have earned an unprecedented 15 Olympic quota places over the course of the qualification period which started with the 2018 World Shooting Championships.
"All 15 shooters are some of the best in the world," Rana told IANS on the sidelines of the Times of India Sports Awards. "They fought well and grabbed those quota places. It was not something that happened over the last few competitions, they fought much before that. Every now and then they beat shooters from countries like China, Korea and the European countries. This is not something small, it has never happened before.
"The only thing is that we should not put pressure on these kids. They are too young, they can do a lot of good things but putting pressure on a 17 or 18-year-old kid is not good. Media plays an important role, if you ask something to someone like me or Abhinav (Bindra), we understand why you are asking but these kids are raw and shooting is a mental game. These kids are smart. I'm sure if you tell them something it doesn't go away from their minds that easily. So one has to be careful."
The outbreak of coronavirus has had wideranging impact on the Olympic qualification calendar. While the last tournament where Asian shooters could win Olympic quotas was the 2019 Asian Shooting Championships in Doha, ranking points could still have been won in tournaments this year which would have beeen taken into account for Tokyo 2020 on May 31. More importantly, Rana said that the cancellations of tournaments have affected the schedule that was planned for the shooters.
"We don't know what's going to happen so what do we do with the quota places. And you have to understand, there is a lifespan of a sportsperson. The training programme was (designed) so as to help them peak in August. Now we don't know... So there are a lot of things that need to be worked on," he said.
However, Rana also said that any possible step to stop the epidemic should be taken.
"The entire world is going through a bad phase so I think everybody has to accept it. It won't be the first time that Olympics has been cancelled or postponed. It happened before because of the World War and this is a world war. We are dealing with something which is in nobody's hands.
"If the Olympics are held and something goes wrong, who will take the responsibility. Flights are getting cancelled, so much business has been lost but the most important thing is if there is any way we can stop it, we should take it," he said.
