New Delhi: A lot has been said about the strength of the Indian shooting team. While the teams are getting younger, the bench is getting deeper. But it isn’t the shooters alone. It won’t be an exaggeration to say that if hypothetically there are no shooters available to participate, India can field its coaches for probably its B or C teams.The Indian coaching team has grown stronger over the last five months with many ‘recently retired’ shooters donning the coaching hat.Among the new joiners are Olympian and multiple World Cup champion Jitu Rai, Asian Games medallist Sonia Rai, Commonwealth Games silver winner Pemba Tamang (pistol); former Asian and Commonwealth Games champion Pooja Ghatkar and Commonwealth Games participant Hariom Singh (rifle).Veterans like Samaresh Jung, Jaspal Rana and Sanjeev Rajput have been into coaching for almost a decade now. “I think it is good to see so many fresh coaches like Jitu and Pooja transitioning well into the new role. They are bringing in fresh ideas, and it is going to help the young shooters in the coming years,” India’s high performance director Pierre Beauchamp told TOI .Jitu, one of the best pistol shooters India has seen, said he still finds himself more as a shooter than a coach. “When I go as a coach with the shooters to tournaments, I prefer to tell them more about the match pressure and things that normally shooters face during the matches. Those are things only a shooter can feel but they may not have the answers. I feel it is not just the technical bit, my job is also to tell them about mind issues,” Jitu said.“I tell them about the scenarios that they can expect during the matches so that when they face that situation, they have the answers. The joy of knowing the problems before they face it, makes the situation better for them,” the World Championship silver medallist added. Pooja, who had won gold in the 2014 Asian Championships, said since she was fresh from shooting, it was easier to connect with the shooters. “I had been shooting till last year and have competed with many of the current lot. I know them and it gets easier to connect and bond with them,” she said.When asked if she still gets tempted to shoot with her students in tournaments, she laughed, “Sometimes, yes.”Tejaswani wins 25m pistol silver medalOn the last day of the ISSF Junior World Cup, Tejaswani closed the hosts’ campaign by winning silver in women’s 25m pistol event at the Karni Singh shooting ranges on Wednesday. Tejaswani scored 30, while the gold winner, Russia’s Aleksandra Tikhonova, shot 33. Italy’s Alessandra Fait took bronze with 28. The other Indians in the field, Naamya Kapoor (21) and Riya Thatte (16), finished fourth and fifth, respectively.
