Should fund a group rather than individuals to create more champions: Gopichand

National bminton coach Pullela Gopichand on Tuesday said current athlete-centric model of funding doesn't benefit sport and re is a need to look at supporting a group rar than individuals to produce more champions. Gopichand me assertion while dressing a special online session organised by Sports Authority of India (SAI) for its newly-appointed Assistant Directors. "All present models are athlete-centric, y don't benefit sport as a whole. y benefit individual athletes. We should look at funding a group rar than individual athletes," he said. " structure should throw up champions. level of competition should be so high, that y become world-class without m even kwing. number 2 and number 3 should be constantly pushing number 1."

'Should fund a group rar than individuals'

Talking about importance of coaches in sporting ecosystem, Gopichand said: "You want people to be on-field, you want m to work as coaches ... (however) as time goes by, a lot of people want to become mentors and ministrators and y don't want to continue coaching.

"As ministrators I want you to be aware, of who are putting in effort and who are remotely managing.

"Most successful models worldwide are coach-driven, sports science and athlete-driven. People working on field should be decision-makers."

Gopichand, who won 2001 All-England Championship title, said rar than having grassroot-level coaches, intermediate coaches and elite coaches as part of a hierarchy, y should all work parallelly.  He also said that it is important that coaches are constantly motivated so that y don't lose interest in ir job.  Gopichand, who groomed Saina Nehwal and P V Sindhu to Olympic medals in 2012 and 2016, also emphasised on importance of having a strong domestic competition structure to create more winners. 

"We need to find small pockets where t only training is world-class but competition is also world-class. Internal competition is what will make people strive to get better," he said.

46-year-old stressed on need for sports ministrators to take a more holistic approach towards player development.

"ministrators should look at being invative and ensuring holistic development of athlete, and we should see that development happening all through. champion will last longer if re is a more holistic approach, said Gopichand. 

Im credits: PTI