Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The Sports Authority of India centre in Kokrajhar, Assam, houses some of the most promising wushu talents from the counry. But their training regimen has come to a halt. Reason? They have no coaches. It’s the same case with cycling in Andaman and Nicobar. The island state is home to one of the top woman cyclists of the country, Deborah. They, too, have several cycling trainees but no coaches.
This is not a problem peculiar to these sports. Even as the sports ministry continues to splurge thousands of crore in countless schemes – Rahul Gandhi inaugurated Rs 9,000 crore worth Rajiv Gandhi Khel Abhiyan on Friday – one of the most essential areas continues to be severely ignored: coach development.
SAI is at least 1,000 coaches short across all disciplines, according to a data compiled by them this month. Currently, they employ only 1,154 coaches for more than 10,500 athletes who train at 100-plus centres (classified as Regional Training Centres, SAI Training Centres, Army Boys Sports Centres, Extension Centres) across the country.
At several centres, athletes have been recruited for training programmes but there are no coaches available. In the first week of February, SAI recruited 174 coaches in 16 disciplines. It was for the first time in two decades that SAI had appointed a coach, highlighting the extent to which this area has been ignored.
SAI director general Jiji Thomson said they knew that the number of accredited coaches were not enough did not expect the shortfall to be so severe. “It is for the first time that we have compiled such data. We were aware that we do not have enough coaches but this has helped us realize that we are terribly short,” Thomson said. “Our objective was to quantify the number of trainees and coaches for every sport. We have been a bit reckless in the past in this regard. We have opened new centres and recruited young athletes but do not have coaches to train them.”
The core disciplines — which include sports such as boxing, badminton, wrestling, shooting, etc — are not directly affected because of the substantial funding they get from the government. They have the muscle to employ coaches directly without depending on SAI. However, the lesser sports, like the ones mentioned above, that do not enjoy the same privilege are severely impacted. Most of the trainees at the SAI centres are aged between 12 and 18, considered crucial for athlete development.
Lack of coaches is not the only issue SAI is facing. The coaching syllabus too is outdated; in fact it has not been upgraded even once in last two decades at least. “That is something we are working on. We have signed a MoU with Sports Coach UK and will also be sending 40 coaches to Hungary so that they can learn modern methods,” Thomson said.
