SAI approves six new foreign coaches for track and field athletes in India

The Sports Authority of India (SAI) has approved six foreign coaches for athletics, up until the 2024 Paris Olympics. The coaches have been appointed with a total cost of around $42000 per month.

The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) is will­ing to have the coaches on board within a month, keeping in mind the prevailing Omicron variant of COVID-19.

The coaches are being appointed in order to give solid preparation to the ath­letes for the Paris Summer Games. This step has been taken to design a long-term devel­op­ment path­ for the track and field events of the country.

The AFI categorized rotational throws such as hammer throw, discuss throw, as well as the 100m, 200m, race walking, javelin throw, and relay races as "identified sports".

AFI Chief Adille Sumari­walla hailed the decision of recruiting new coaches keeping in mind an action-packed 2022 calender year for the athletes.

“We have been feel­ing the need for some coaches, both at the junior and senior level, for a while now. Rota­tional throws, javelin, sprints, race walk­ing, and relay races have been clas­si­fied as ‘iden­ti­fied sports’ by us. This being a very com­pet­it­ive year, it is good that the recom­mend­a­tions have been approved. We want to have them onboard as soon as pos­sible," said Ath­let­ics Fed­er­a­tion of India pres­id­ent Adille Sumari­walla.

Six new coaches have been appointed

The elite coaches who have been appointed to train Indian track and field athletes are expected to resume duties within a month.

Fin­land’s Kimmo Kin­nunen has been appointed for the javelin throw, Poland’s Josef Lisowski will train athletes competing in sprints and relays. Ger­many’s Stef­fen Reu­mann will look after the dis­cus throw and shot put events. Meanwhile USA’s Tatiana Sibil­eva will train the Race Walkers.

The long jump and triple jump athletes will train under Cuba’s Juan Gual­berto Napoles Carde­nas. Whereas USA’S Scott Sim­mons has been appointed for the Middle and Long-dis­tance athletes.