Apex rifle body, JSW Group join hands; aim for Olympic glory

In order to attain Olympic glory, the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) has got into a High Performance Partnership with the JSW Group to train the countrys shooters for next years Tokyo Games and the subsequent Olympics in 2024 in Paris.

As part of the agreement, the USD 13 billion Indian conglomerate would fund NRAI's high performance resources and expert requirements to hone shooters' skills for the next two Olympic Games, it was announced at a media conference here on Thursday.

Hailing the "strategic" partnership along with JSW sports director Parth Jindal, NRAI President Raninder Singh said at the conference the tie-up would help India's shooters achieve Olympic podium finish next year in Tokyo.

"We are on the cusp of podium finishes in Tokyo. We had 27 medals in the recent World Championships out of which 24 were bagged by shooters in the 14-19 age group.

"We are number one in the world among juniors and number three among seniors and in pistol shooting we are far ahead of the rest," said Singh.

"We get Rs 30 crore annually from the government which does not cover our expenses for coaches, physios and the like. This partnership with the JSW Group will help us meet those expenses," he said.

The NRAI chief said his association has decided to keep faith more and more on home-bred coaches from now on.

"We have decided to engage only Indian coaches and it will be done gradually. Barring 1-2 we are not going to rely on foreign coaches after Tokyo.

"We need to be self-reliant. All our top juniors have been trained by Indian coaches," Singh explained about the rationale behind the decision.

Although Singh said the partnership deal was worth Rs 1 crore a year, sources in JSW said the figure was "much higher", especially as the NRAI chief himself had said during the media briefing that someone like erstwhile champion shooter Jaspal Rana should be paid Rs 2.5-3 lakh a month and not a paltry Rs 25,000 as a pistol shooting coach.

"We are in a much stronger position now than in the run-up to Rio Games (in 2016) because of our focus on junior programme after nothing was done over 3 to 3 and a half years. Don't be surprised if there are many new faces going to Tokyo," the top NRAI official said.

With India having bagged two quota places already in womens 10m air rifle for the Tokyo Games, Singh expected it to rise into double figures.

"I expect the quota places to go up to 13-14 for Tokyo," he said confidently.