Shooting
Coaches who trained Indian shooters for Tokyo Olympics
The Indian shooting team has reached the world's top levels over the years. The contribution of foreign and Indian coaches has been a crucial part of their success.
The 15-member Indian shooting contingent is ready to make its mark at the Tokyo Olympics 2021. The blend of young and veteran shooters has been training hard for the Olympic day.
However, it is not just the hard work of shooters alone, but also an entire army of support behind them. The biggest support for the Indian shooting team is their coaches.
Interestingly, the team of coaches is a blend of foreign and former Indian shooters. Their contribution to the team has produced some of the world's top shooters.
Jaspal Rana
Junior pistol team coach, Jaspal Rana has been behind the progress of young Indian shooters. Shooting favorites Manu Bhaker, Saurabh Chaudhary, and Anish Bhanwala started their journey in the junior shooting program under former world champion Jaspal Rana. He also won the Dronacharya award in 2020.
Looking at his shooting career, Rana competed at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Pistol coach has clinched many international medals in his career, including gold in the Asian and Commonwealth championships.
Unfortunately, there have been some problems between Manu and Jaspal Rana leading to a rift between them. Bhaker has now changed her coach for Tokyo Olympics.
Ronak Pandit
Ronak Pandit is the coach for Tokyo-bound Indian pistol shooters. Interestingly, he is the husband of ace shooter Heena Sidhu.
Pandit has also been a coach to the former world number one Heena Sindhu. After the rift between Manu and Rana, he has been coaching the young shooter.
Pandit won the gold medal at the 2006 Commonwealth games in the 25m pistol event.
Pavel Smirnov
Pavel has been the National pistol team's foreign coach for a decade now. During the 2012 London Olympics, he coached Indian shooter Vijay Kumar, who eventually clinched the silver medal in the 25m event.
Smirnov has been coaching the top Indian shooters like Saurabh Chaudhary, Yashaswini Singh Deswal, and Abhishek Verma. The 10m air pistol team is the strongest in the Indian shooting team and Pavel has played an important role in their success.
Samaresh Jung
Former Indian shooter is the high-performance pistol coach for the Indian pistol team. Jung also competed in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He has been coaching the 25m pistol team, including Rahi Sarnobat and Manu Bhaker.
In his career, Samaresh has produced excellent performances at Commonwealth Games and Asian Championships. He used to compete alongside Jaspal Rana and Ronak Pandit.
Suma Shirur
Shirur competed in the 2004 Athens Olympics and is currently the high-performance coach in the rifle junior team. Tokyo-bound shooter Aishwary Pratap Singh trains under Suma. Aishwary has been performing extremely well at the World Cups.
Suma is one of the earliest Indian women shooters and also holds a joint world record. She mainly focuses on the 50m rifle, 3 positions team.
Deepali Deshpande
Olympian Deepali started the junior shooting program in India along with Jaspal Rana. She is the current high-performance coach for the Indian rifle team.
Tokyo-bound 50m rifle shooter Anjum Moudgil has been training under her for a while. Deepali represented India at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Deepak Kumar Dubey
Dubey is the coach for the Indian 10m air rifle team. World Champion Divyansh Singh Panwar has been training under him. He can be rightfully credited for Divyansh's performance on international grounds. During the lockdown, he built a range at his own flat for Divyansh to practice.
Oleg Mikhailov
Oleg is the international coach for the rifle team. He joined the Indian team in 2017. Mikhailov has been training world top shooters Elavenil Valarivan and Apurvi Chandela. Oleg trained the Brazilian shooting team for the Rio Olympics 2016. He also trains the 50m rifle, 3 positions Indian team.
Ennio Falco
Falco is the international coach for the skeet team. Olympian Ennio clinched the gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics.
It was under his supervision that the Indian skeet team has progressed to win the maximum number of Olympic quotas in the skeet men's event. Mairaj Ahmad Khan has credited him for the success of the Indian shooting team over the years. The Tokyo-bound shooters are training under him in Italy.
Other notable mentions are Ved Prakash Pilyani( Pistol team coach), Manoj Kumar( Pistol team coach), and Rakesh Manpat( Rifle team coach).
