Shooters’ Rio debacle to be reviewed

The National Rifle Association of India has come up with a proposal to set up a special committee headed by Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra, to carry out a comprehensive review of the shooters’ below-par performance at the Rio Games.

India shooters proved to be an epic failure in a disastrous Rio Olympic Games as the 12-member team, with the exception of Bindra, failed miserably to live up to expectations. This has left the country’s shooting fraternity disappointed.

“NRAI is to shortly announce the formation of an independent committee to analyse the performance of the Indian shooting team at the Rio Olympics and fix accountability of for the same subsequently,” a top official of the federation said on condition of anonymity.

The panel will also be expected to recommend to NRAI measures to prevent a recurrence.

The likes of Heena Sidhu, Manavjeet Singh Sandhu, Gagan Narang, Jitu Rai and Apurvi Chandela, among others, left the country disappointed after failing to come into medal contention.

The NRAI was expected to introspect and dissect the reasons for the let-down from the shooting contingent.

After fetching medals at each of the last three Games, India’s largest-ever shooting contingent returned empty-handed.

The issue of shooters hiring personal coaches, the selection of shooters for multiple Olympics on reputation rather than form and the role of private non-profits like Olympic Gold Quest, Lakshya Foundation, Anglian Medal Hunt and Go Sports are issues likely to be investigated by the panel.

Sources said the NRAI is keen to have the panel recommend that all shooting activity be centralised under the federation’s control. Besides Bindra, the committee is likely to comprise NRAI secretary Rajiv Bhatia, former national tennis champion Manisha Malhotra, and two journalists.

Right after the Indian shooters’ campaign in Rio, NRAI president Raninder Singh had taken upon himself the blame for the dismal outing, saying it was a mistake on his part to allow the athletes to train with personal coaches.

In what was the only bright spot, Beijing Olympics gold medallist Bindra’s finished fourth in a tense shoot-off in the 10m air rifle event.