Bhowneesh Mendiratta awaits reply from SAI on training plans
Vinayak Padmadeo
New Delhi, March 31
Trap shooter Bhowneesh Mendiratta, who punched his ticket for the Paris Olympic Games, is still waiting to hear from the top brass of the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) about his training plan.
Mendiratta is in the core group of the TOPS, which was started to provide technical support to Indian athletes. The 23-year-old sent his training programme via email last month but is yet to get an acknowledgement from the officials.
Mendiratta’s plan involves training with his personal coach Daniele di Spigno at five different shooting ranges in Europe for over two months. The plan has been cleared by shotgun chief coach Russell Mark and high performance manager Lauryn Mark. He has also requested for 15000 cartridges.
Mendiratta won the quota for India after finishing fourth at the ISSF World Championships in Croatia in September.
The Sports Authority of India (SAI), which controls the TOPS secretariat, said that Mendiratta’s plan was only received on Thursday. However, when confronted with the email that had date and time stamps, SAI said that the plan was sent to a non-operational email ID.
“The athlete sent his first request on Feb 28th on an email ID that is defunct,” SAI said in a statement. “The fresh proposal on the actual ID where athletes send their proposals was received by the TOPS Division on the 30th of March. The athlete has already been contacted by TOPS on March 31st via email to take his proposal forward,” the statement added.
However, sources close to the shooter denied SAI’s claims. Meanwhile, Ronjan Sodhi, who mentors Mendiratta, criticised this delay. “Bhowneesh sent his training plan last month and no one has responded to his request. People at the Sports Ministry or at TOPS should get back to him,” Sodhi said.
“So much money is being spent by the government for the athletes so it is alarming that these officials either do not know what to do with the money and end up wasting it or simply cannot identify the right people to invest in,” he added.
