50 men, 32 women athletes fail to join national coaching camp

Patiala, Feb 2 (UNI) The attendance in the ongoing national athletics coaching camp at the Netaji Subhas National Institute of Sports (NIS) here is a cause for worry in view of the forthcoming Asian Track and Field Meet in Lebanon from July 29 to August 2 and Beijing Olympics next year, besides the World Athletics Championship towards the end of August in Osaka, Japan.

Around 69 men and 37 women athletes have been invited to the camp under the supervision of 29 coaches, two physiotherapists and other support staff, but only 19 male and five female athletes have reported to the camp till date. And what is most glaring is the fact that only five coaches -- Bahadur Singh, Suresh Saini, Sanjay Garnaik, R S Sidhu and Parveen Singh -- have reported to the camp.

The male athletes who have reported to the camp are: Navpreet Singh, Om Prakash, Sameer Mohan, Harpreet Singh, Sunil Kumar, Amritpal Singh, Devinder Kumar, Bhupinder Singh, Anil Kumar, Satinder Singh, Ranjot, Ram Niwas, Amarjit Singh, Paramjit Singh, Joseph Abraham, Bineesh VB, Ajay Kumar, Clinton KJ, Vishal Saxena.

The female athletes are: Manjit Kaur, Rajwinder, Seema Antil, Harwant and Mandeep.

The foreign coaches too have arrived at the NIS. They are: Dr Yuri Ogrodnik (Ukraine) for 400m (women), Ignatenka (Ukraine) for sprints (men and women), Yuri Minakov (Ukraine) for discus (women) and shot put (men). Dr Nikolai (Belarus) is presently training athletes at Bangalore in the events of middle and long distance race and walk.

Two more foreign coaches are to arrive in India shortly. They are Shivlli (Uzbekistan) for jumps and Oleksandr Kovchenko (Ukraine) for decathlon.

The camp started at the NIS on January 7 and would continue till March 31.

UNI