Mumbai: Senior Indian archer Jayanta Talukdar is hoping hoped that the national team's Korean coach would be retained till the next Olympic Games but conceded he does not trust the Archery Association of India to do so.
"Now we have our foreign coach, Mr Lim Chae Woong. Whether he will continue till 2016, we don't know. We (archers) don't believe in our federation as they might change him. They change like the weather," said Talukdar -- a two-time men's team bronze medal winner at the Asian Games.
"Today they say he will be with us till the Rio Olympics. But later on they may say we don't want him and want a better coach -- a European or American coach," remarked the Assam-born archer wryly.
Talukdar, who was on Friday brought under its wings along with top woman archer Deepika Kumari by non-profit sports foundation Olympic Gold Quest, explained why the Korean was preferred as coach by him and most other Indian archers.
"After he came to India in 2002 the performance of Indian archers has improved a lot. Earlier, the Indian team used to go out and participate but never got any medal. But he came and changed the technique, changed training plan and the performance improved, scores improved and we started getting medals. The main thing is most of the archers believe in him, as most of us have trained under him. He comminicates with us in broken English and manages well. He was with us in the Tata Academy too. He knows us, and is able to correct any technical problem we might develop. Whenever he suggests any changes we never hesitate to follow his advice. He knows if he changes something the changed technique will help us to improve our scores and we also know that," he added.
The 28-year-old bow and arrow exponent said one of his major aims was to gain an individual medal in next year's Asian Games in Incheon, Korea.
"This time I want to get at least an individual medal in the Asian Games in Korea. I got team medals in the last two Asian Games (in Doha, Qatar and Guangzhou, China). Then I will try to get a medal in Olympic Games also. My plan is to correct any mistake in technique before the world championships (September 29-October 6 in Turkey). Next year we have one major competition - Asian Games," said Talukdar about his future target.
He also pointed out that the sporting discipline is not in the programme of next year's Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, because the host country not good in it.
"I am also planning for the 2016 Rio Olympics. We missed getting a medal in the last Olympics in London, but will try to rectify in the next," said Talukdar who felt the team missed the presence of a mental trainer in the London Games last year. From the last Olympics we learnt many things. I felt we practiced hard but were not prepared mentally. We did nothing for improving the mental side. We just practiced. We needed a psychologist and asked the federation too but we got nothing. A proper coach was also not given. We had Mr Limba Ram who was a good archer but was not very good as a coach," he said.
Talukdar explained that apart from the recurve event, in which he and other Indian archers take part, the hi-tech compound event will make its debut in the Incheon Asiad next year.
"The compound event is there in the World Championships, Asian Championships and has been included in the coming Asian Games for the first time. It is not there in the Olympics and won't be there for another 10 to 12 years. It's a different game, its got trigger, its got lens, whereas recurve is totally manual," he elaborated.
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