Untraceable coach upsets NRAI

After waiting to hear from pistol coach Melentiev for four months,shooting federation starts search for alternatives

By this time,Aleksandr Melentiev should have been preparing the Indian pistol team of Vijay Kumar,Rahi Sarnobat and Annuraj Singh for the ISSFs World Cup Finals to be held in Wroclaw,Poland,from September 18. Instead,the shooters are still awaiting their coachs arrival while the Russian,who resides in USA,has ditched his initial interest in taking up the vacant position.

Melentiev had asked for a contract that would run till 2014 besides a monthly wage of $6,000,with both demands being agreed upon by the Sports Authority of India (SAI). A copy of the contract was subsequently sent to Melentiev but since then,despite a number of reminders over the last four months,he hasnt responded to the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI).

Now the association says they have no alternative but to look for another coach. You cant keep a country waiting for this long,as far as we are concerned the Melentiev issue is over, NRAI president Raninder Singh told The Indian Express on Wednesday.

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The position for a pistol coach has been lying vacant since the 2008 Beijing Olympics after Csaba Gyoriks contract wasnt renewed. Since then,the NRAI has been on the lookout for a coach,before their zeroed in on Melentiev after a long search of three years.

National coach Sunny Thomas and rifle coach Stanislav Lapidus had met Melentiev during the Fort BenningWorld Cup at Atlanta in May this year,where he was travelling as the advisor to the USA team. But after showing interest and actively pursuing a contract,he has now gone incognito.

We had a long discussion in Atlanta and he told me he will come but needed a month to serve out his notice period with the US team. It was only after that the NRAI sent him the contract papers but ever since there is no news of him. Even Stas (Lapidus) hasnt heard from him. It is a big betrayal as we went out of our way to accommodate his needs, Thomas said.

Looking for options

Led by Thomas,the NRAI has now constituted a selection committee to look for alternatives which also has Lapidus and NRAI advisor Baljeet Singh Sethi as part of the panel.

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Thomas said that Indian shooters have been doing well even without a coach but its now important that after such a long delay,they pick the best to help the contingent fine-tune their skills for London Olympics.

Many have shown interest in becoming the coach but we wanted to select the best candidate. Its not an ideal situation (where the post is lying vacant for so long) but thats the way it is. Three of our pistol shooters have qualified for the Olympics without even having a proper coach for this long. This tells us we have the skills and because of this we now need to ensure that only the best joins the team, he said.