Minister for Youth and Sports Kamala Roka was greeted with loud cheers as she inaugurated the program in the capital on Thursday with the view of providing proper training for medal-hopeful athletes almost a year before the regional sporting extravaganza. [break]
SAG gold medalist Rajendra Bhandari says that in his 15-year career in athletics, this is the first time that the training for SAG has kicked off in time.
“Such kind of long trainings took place only in the Panchayat era. After the restoration of democracy, preparation for major sporting events has always been an eleventh-hour rush,” said Bhandari who clinched gold in marathon, which was later announced as road race due to technical mistakes of the organizers, during the 11th SAG held in Dhaka, Bangladesh last year.
Although Bhandari believes that this training would bring good results, he is doubtful that the government will give continuity to such programs in future. Minister Roka herself said that frequent change of government is hitting the sports sector quite hard.
Taekwondo’s chief coach Deep Raj Gurung, speaking on behalf of the coaches, lashed out at the previous leaderships of the NSC for not ensuring adequate training and instead getting embroiled in disputes.
“The three months training we used to get was too little. The first month went away in selecting players and then the dispute for chef-de-mission would arise,” lamented Gurung. “But this training has filled us with new hopes,” he added.
The NSC will provide training to 61 athletes from eight different sports--taekwondo, wrestling, athletics, judo, weightlifting, boxing, karate and wushu--for about a year. The training will be divided into four phases and each athlete will get Rs 300 per day for diet, which also includes Rs 100 as pocket money, in the initial phase of three months.
The NSC also distributed sports kits to all the selected players.
Member Secretary Lama said that the first phase will be an open session. The NSC will introduce scientific methods of training and maintain records of physical and mental conditions as well as the level of dedication of each player.
At the end of the first phase, there will be an assessment about each athlete’s progress. Those who fail will be dropped and those who pass will make it to another phase where they will be guided by special coaches. The players will be updated about the international practices and new rules in this stage.
Those who pass the second phase will be put through the closed-camp training. There will be another round of evaluation in this phase.
In the fourth phase, the NSC plans to bring in international coaches to train the athletes. The outstanding athletes will get an opportunity to train abroad.
At the end of the training, the NSC plans to acclimatize the players before heading toward New Delhi for the games.
Lama said that the concept of one year training was inspired by the sports policies of foreign countries where they train for three to four years before a major event.
“Even the one year training is less. It should have been at least for two years,” he said. “Our mission is to win medals in SAG and bury our past disputes.”
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