Athletes, coaches praise SAI's online workshop to enhance skill of coaches

Former athletes, including 2003 World Championships bronze medallist Anju Bobby George, have lavished praise on the Sports Authority of India (SAI) for its online workshop aimed at enhancing skills of coaches. With the lockdown in the country extended till May 3 to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, SAI has launched a 21-day online development programme for coaches in 16 disciplines in association with National Sporting Federations.

"SAI could not have chosen a better time for this workshop. Right now the coaches are relatively free and during this time they are getting a chance to brush up their skills and exchange ideas with each other," long jumper Anju Bobby George was quoted as saying in a ministry release. On the first day, the sessions was attended by 4700 coaches, while 5075 coaches logged in on the second day.

"Just the sheer number of coaches attending the sessions provides a great platform for knowledge sharing and enhancement. It was also great to see the Sports Minister and Director General of SAI attending the sessions. It shows how serious the ministry and SAI is about empowering coaches," George said.

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Former Olympian shooter and now current High Performance coach of Indian Junior Rifle Team, Suma Shirur too praised the initiative. "This is an amazing step to promote sports science. A 'game-changing' move as rightly said by Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju in the the webinar. Great to hear you kicking off this programme with 4000+ attendee coaches from all over India," Shirur wrote on his Twitter handle.

Para High Jumper Sharad Kumar, who was recently appointed as coach as part of an initiative by SAI, also gave a thumbs up to the programme."Fantastic online classes initiative by Athletics Federation of India, Sports Ministry and Sports Authority of India. I have attended both the classes till now and looking forward to continuing till the end," Kumar said. The online coaching sessions for swimming took place earlier this week.

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