‘Easy to criticise athletes from outside’: Former national shooting coach Sunny Thomas

They were destined to return with a clutch of medals. The only debate was over the hues of these medals. With the strong 15-member shooting contingent having finished on the podium in most events in the past five years, Indians had a valid reason to believe that there won’t be a repeat of the 2016 debacle when the shooters failed to win a medal at the Rio Olympics.

However, the shooting ranges at the Tokyo Olympics have not been kind to the Indians. Apurvi Chandela (10m air rifle), Elavenil Valarivan (10m air rifle), Divyansh Singh Panwar (10m air rifle), Deepak Kumar (10m air rifle), Abhishek Verma (10m air pistol) and Manu Bhaker (10m air pistol) failed to make it past qualification rounds. The teams in the mixed events, too, failed to make the finals. Saurabh Chaudhary raised hopes in the 10m air pistol, topping the qualification round but finished seventh in finals. He then combined with Bhaker to top the first qualification round in the mixed event. But the pair, which had won four World Cup gold medals, went downhill after that. Bhaker failed to make the finals in the 25m pistol event, too, and so did veteran Rahi Sarnobat.

The men’s and women’s 50m rifle 3 positions events remain, but the disappointment in the Indian shooting camp is palpable. There have already been announcements of an overhaul in coaching structure and reports of differences between coaches and the athletes.

Perhaps, nobody is more pained by what is happening in Tokyo than Sunny Thomas, the former national shooting coach. Having guided the Indian shooting team for almost two decades, Thomas is as much heartbroken by the athletes’ performance as he is about the reports of rifts in the Indian camp.

Despite tough times, both because of the COVID-19 pandemic and in personal life, the 79-year-old is keenly following the exploits of the Indian shooters at the Tokyo Olympics. “Shooting is in my blood. I cannot stay away from it,” Thomas, who is in Kochi now, told THE WEEK in a telephonic interaction.

A former English professor at St Stephen’s College in Kottayam, Thomas quit competitive shooting in 1982 and began training shooters. The Dronacharya awardee took over as the national shooting coach in 1993 and retired after the London Olympics in 2012. It was during his tenure that Indian won all the four Olympic medals - Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore’s silver in double trap in the 2004 Athens Olympics, rifle ace Abhinav Bindra’s historic 10m air rifle gold in 2008 Beijing, and Vijay Kumar’s silver in 25m rapidfire and Gagan Narang’s bronze in 10m air rifle.

“When I joined in 1993, the pistol team, rifle team and the shotgun team were all separate. I strived hard to bring them all under one umbrella – as one Indian shooting team. Now they have separate national coaches and athletes have individual coaches, too. There were separate coaches earlier, too, but we worked as one,” said Thomas.

He pointed out an instance to elaborate his point. Thomas had gone with the Indian shooting contingent as the manager to the 2014 World Championships in Granada, Spain. “The teams were, once again, divided into rifle, pistol and shotgun teams. There was even a senior rifle team and a junior rifle team! And all these teams hardly spoke to, or mingled, with each other. This separation pained me.”

The area of concern was highlighted by Joydeep Karmakar, too, a former air rifle shooter who finished fourth in London 2012. He had pointed out that there is no communication between athletes’ individual coaches and national coaches. India currently has national coaches for each discipline – Deepali Deshpande for rifle, Ved Prakash, Ronak Pandit and Samaresh Jung for pistol, and Mansher Singh for shotgun. Karmakar also underlined the need for a high-performance director who would work in tandem with all coaches.

So, is the current structure, especially in the backdrop of the reports of rifts between the coaches and athletes, hurting India more than it’s helping? “It’s not right for me to comment on it. Perhaps, that’s the best way forward now for this generation. This system allows each shooter to get individual attention and support. The juniors have done well over the years, probably because of this system.”

Thomas, in fact, credited Raninder Singh, president, National Rifle Association of India, for backing the young shooters to the hilt. “Raninder took the initiative to give maximum support to the juniors. People criticised him for spending money and time on them, but he put a system in place, and it benefited the junior shooters. He believed in them.”

Despite all the talk about these young Indian shooters buckling under pressure at the Olympics, Thomas urged the Indian fans to be patient with them. He also said that the build-up to the Olympics was far from ideal. “COVID-19 affected their preparations greatly. The pandemic situation was bad in India. They lost out on valuable tournament practice. Also, in the competitions leading up to the Olympics, the top Chinese, Japanese and Russian shooters weren’t there. So, the level of competition was low. It, possibly, gave a false sense of security to the contingent.”

Karmakar had, in fact, pointed out that the Indian shooters were not up to the mark at the European Championships and the World Cup in Osijek, before the Olympics. At Osijek, the scores of Panwar, Valarivan, Kumar and Chandela were not up to Olympics standards.

But Thomas is quick to add that the pressure of the Olympics can get to the best and most experienced athletes. “The pressure is immense. We see people withdrawing now because of it. It hasn’t happened to us in shooting. Possibly because of the mental training our shooters are given. These shooters have proved themselves internationally over the years. It’s easy to criticise them from the outside. Nobody can imagine what they go through before every shot. Most of them are youngsters. So, we have to be patient with them.”

Thomas cited the example of Bindra, who rose through the junior ranks and took his time to finally come of age and win the historic gold in 2008. Bindra, Thomas said, had a problem with the back sight of his rifle during the sighting shots between the qualification round and the finals of the Beijing Olympics. "It was his experience and presence of mind which helped him overcome it and win the gold." In Tokyo, Bhaker’s gun malfunctioned during the 10m air pistol qualification. She lost 17 minutes and her rhythm as well. “In hindsight, people may say that Manu and her coach Ronak Pandit could have used the spare pistol. But only those two could make a decision then. Nobody else. They did what they thought was right. If it had worked, nobody would have said anything. We have got to trust their judgement,” Thomas said.

But what shocked the veteran was the report of rift between Bhaker and her former coach Jaspal Rana, the former pistol stalwart and Dronacharya awardee. “I had no clue of this rift. It was shocking. I cannot imagine how and why it happened. I had talked to Rana but I didn’t know about it then and neither did he say anything about it then. I asked him why he didn't go to Tokyo. He just said that he wasn’t sent.”

Thomas said that the whole episode would have definitely upset Bhaker mentally, since the coach and his ward had been working together like a “well-oiled machine”.

The NRAI president has promised changes in the coaching structure. Is it the best solution and was it right on his part to announce it amid the Games? “It is natural for changes to be made in the structure when something goes wrong,” Thomas said. “Whether Raninder should have said it now, well, the automatic reply would be that he could have said it after the Games. But he is there in Tokyo, not us. He is seeing things that we aren’t. And that may have frustrated him. He is a human being. It might have come out. We don’t know. He must have had a reason to say it there.”

Thomas, however, cautioned against any knee-jerk reactions. “We must analyse the performance of the shooters with a calm mind, and not take any drastic decisions.

“I have full faith in Raninder and the NRAI. They will take the right decision keeping the future of the sport in mind.”