‘Errant’ coaches not to travel abroad with archery team

NEW DELHI: The Archery Association of India ( AAI) has finally cracked down on the coaches who were part of the India squad at the World Universiade Games in Gwangju, South Korea.

The team’s foreign coach Lim Chae Woong, senior men’s compound coach Jivanjot Singh and recurve coach Surender have been barred from travelling with the team for international competitions.

The AAI announced the decision on Thursday even as it will probe the reason for the men’s compound team’s failure to arrive for the bronze medal play-off match against Italy on July 7.

The AAI released a statement after the three-member probe committee of secretary-general Anil Kamineni, treasurer Virender Sachdeva and ethics committee head KS Kang met at the residence of chief Vijay Kumar Malhotra.

“The preliminary enquiry suggests that there was a lack of communication between the coaches concerned which apparently led to the incident. The committee would further enquire into the matter and submit its report at the earliest,” said the release.

“In the meantime, the coaches concerned would not be given any international assignments,” it added. The statement nails the version put forth by Jivanjot, who had said that one of the archers had suffered equipment failure. “Gurwinder’s bow string broke and none of the archers were carrying a spare bow. So we had to send a guy to the team hotel to get a bow from the girls. We reached the competition venue exactly two minutes after reporting time but the officials didn’t give in to our request,” Jivanjot had told HT.

The lack of communication defence too doesn’t cut ice as the management had three days since the schedule was announced. “The competition schedule was distributed at the technical meeting on 3 July, prior to the beginning of competition on 4 July. Since then, the competition schedule was not changed,” World Archery had said.

Gurwinder’s string broke and none of the archers were carrying a spare. We had to send a guy to the hotel to get a bow. We reached the venue exactly two minutes after reporting time

JIVANJOT SINGH, compound coach