It had been a bitter-sweet relationship between Indian weightlifting and foreign coaches in the past.
The doping ghosts had chased them and its image suffered a huge dent. Despite that, the Indian Weightlifting Federation (IWF) has decided to go once again with a foreign coach to train its team for the 2016 Rio Olympics.
“We have roped in an Egyptian (Mohd. Khalid Korney) coach to train our team,” said IWF president Birendra Prasad Baishya.
He said the Centre had already given approval. “He will coordinate with our coaches and strengthen the performances of our team.”
Limited participation The ongoing National Games here has seen limited participation in various categories. “Quite true, the junior Nationals saw strong participation, but that’s not the case with the Games here.
We have discussed this matter and a two-member committee has been formed to look into it and submit a report next month.
Then we will take up the matter with the IOA,” Baishya said.
The senior National is scheduled at Jaipur from March 11.
However, with swine flu threat looming large all has not been well at the Pink City.
“We will take up the matter with the Health Ministry. Hopefully, it should be ok by next month,” he added.
Vijay Sharma, the National coach from Uttar Pradesh, was happy that IWF had managed to get rid of the doping menace.
Talking about his association with Khalid, Sharma said he strongly believed he would work wonders for the team. “He has trained the Egyptian team which was quite successful at the Olympics.”
Sharma said the IWF, which has not hired foreign coaches for over eight years now, had made two things clear to Khalid — strong performance and a clean and fair game.
“He will be here in the middle of February to train the team for the upcoming international tournaments and the Olympics.
“The Indian team has reached a certain level.
“We cannot remain at that point. We need to climb further and Khalid will be a big help to us,” he added.
