‘Adopt, groom young players at state level’

Ludhiana: “If we want more Olympic medals, we have to adopt and groom young players at state level,” said 26-year-old Olympian Simranjit Kaur. The pugilist said getting the right training from a young age plays a crucial role in the performance.
On Wednesday, Simranjit returned home to Chakar village, where she also went to the local sports academy and interacted with the budding boxers and gave tips on diet and training.
Speaking with the TOI, the boxer said, “People and the governments remain distant from sports and sportspersons for four years and near the Olympics their focus suddenly changes. Then they expect all players to get medals and thereafter again forget about them. We cannot bring medals with this attitude.”
“The initial years in the game are important and if given the right training and diet from the beginning, we can get excellent results. So, I would suggest the government and the sports authorities to start grooming players for the Olympics from the age when they start playing for the state, as years of hard work and training are required to win a medal in Olympics,” she added.
Balwant Singh Sandhu, chairperson of the Chakar Sports Academy, said, “Like us, many other sports enthusiasts are running private academies in other villages. We are doing our best to provide good training to the budding players, but if trained coaches visit such academies and share the right techniques, we may produce more players who can excel at international level.”