Our job is to ensure we have a common minimum working plan with personal coaches: NRAI chief

  National Rifle Association of India will work out a "common minimum programme" to ensure re is animosity between personal and national coaches, said newly-elected president of federation, Kalikesh Singh Deo, on Monday.

issue of personal versus national coaches took centre st ahead of Paris Olympics , with NRAI coming up with a long list of dos and don'ts for former that led to some acrimony, but federation eventually resolved issue.

" idea is to ensure that personal coach and national programme... national coaches work hand in hand. Because 70 per cent of time, athlete is going to be with personal coach. y'll be in and out of team.

"So, re is a dependency on personal coach. And I don't think we can completely do away with that. It's our job to ensure that we come up with a common minimum working plan in long run for all our athletes," said Kalikesh in an interaction with PTI.

He added that in run-up to Paris Games, he tried to ensure smooth sailing between personal and national coaches.

"A large part of effort building up to Olympics was in ensuring that ecosystem between personal coaches and national coaches is smooned out. It was better than what it was before.

"Primarily, one of first few things I did when I became acting president (in May 2023) was to create a for personal coaches in NRAI system, where athletes can actually ask for recognition of ir personal coach.

"And that's where our efforts lie. Yes, re may be differences of opinion. And that's where high-performance team and manrs come into action," he added.

frequent changes in selection policy for Olympic Games has been ar sticking point between shooters and federation, and Kalikesh said he would try his best to ensure drastic changes are t made through amendments in next Olympic cycle.

federation came up with a new Olympic selection policy following Tokyo Olympics setback in 2021 and amended it a couple of times leading up to Paris Games.

" Olympic policy is t decided by me alone. It's decided by selection committee and technical committee. But, let me tell you this, that policy has to closely mirror format of sport in Olympics .

"Our Olympic policy has to be in sync with that. It needs to adapt to current circumstances of sport. And competitiveness of our shooters. But on whole, we would like to avoid making any drastic changes in policy, certainly t interim," he added.

"But yes, if re are compelling reasons for us to make it more transparent, to make it more fair to have better shooters to get best shooter and give our team best chances (in Olympics ), we have t hesitated to do that." NRAI chief said this was t time to completely do away with foreign coaches and ask country's Olympic medallists to take over ir role, but added that federation was gradually moving in that direction.

"We're already talking to some of foreign coaches (for next Olympic cycle). At this point, I don't think you can completely do away with foreign coaches. And really what we are looking is to get best coaches, wher y are Indian or foreign.

"So it's t coaches' nationality, but ir competence and ir ability to work with team. But, in longer run, yes." "We need to get off our dependency of trying to find foreign coaches. We've got some very good shooters, who are good coaches, who are becoming good coaches, and who are already good coaches in ecosystem.

"And we'll just choose best, irrespective of which country y come from," he added.

He also said that NRAI will fund entire expenditure of elite ISSF World Cup Final, scheduled to take place next month at Karni Singh Ranges here.

" NRAI is going to fund entire competition, including cash prize of Rs 1.5 crore for shooters here.

"Given performance of Indian shooters at Olympics , we thought this (organising World Cup Final) is an absolutely perfect opportune moment for NRAI to demonstrate capabilities and competence of Indian shooters on home ground." "We've got our volunteer system where we've got shooters from across country, about 500 young shooters, applying for it. It'll be a great exposure for m (to see top shooters in world competing here).