Lapidus laments poor coaching

Kochi: Indian rifle shooting Coach Stanislas Lapidus who helped Gagan Narang to the Olympics podium in London finds the practice of target hunting unusually high among upcoming shooters, which he says is due to wrong training given in the starting years.

The man from Kazakhstan into his sixth year in the country has urged for significant over haul in the general approach that should help India put more world class shooters into the Olympic grid.

“It is normal for a kid holding a rifle for the first time to hunt for the target because he doesn’t know about taking aim or balancing or positioning. If the kid is not taught properly he will end up being a target hunter and not a shooter and unfortunately more than 80 per cent of the shooters in the country are into hunting,” said Stanislas.

Despite a lot many youngsters aspiring to be like Gagan and Abhinav Bindra he finds a strange imbalance between natural talent existing in the country and its execution.

“I find it surprising to see hundreds of male shooters in the senior level struggling to score over 590 which is nothing compared to international standard.

Most of them have been in the sport for even ten years and that makes me wonder why there is such a huge imbalance,” he said.

“Our shooters are unbelievably motivated, but sometimes I wonder if it is possible to find a worse training method for beginners anywhere else in the world. Firstly we need to train the state level coaches the right way so that more quality shooters reach the top. If we succeed in doing that India can overthrow China from the world stage,” said Stanislas.