Sports Ministry approves foreign training camps for Paris Olympics-bound athletes including Vinesh Phogat

New Delhi: The Sports Ministry’s Mission Olympic Cell (MOC) has approved foreign training camps for several Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games-bound athletes, including wrestler Vinesh Phogat. Vinesh has sought financial assistance towards competition and training camp in Madrid, followed by a training camp in Boulogne sur-Mer, France.

She is set to compete in the Grand Prix, Spain, in July before spending a week in training there before heading to Boulogne sur-Mer, France, to train for 20 days ahead of the Olympics. The MOC also approved overseas training camps for Indian pistol shooter Arjun Cheema who sought assistance towards 11-day training in Austria.

The Paralympics-bound javelin throwers Ajeet Singh and Sandeep Choudhary will respectively train at Leichtathletik Gemeinschaft Offenburg Centre and LAZ Zweibrucken EV Centre in Germany.

Ajeet will train for 45 days under German coach Werner Daniel while Sandeep will train for 41 days under Uwe Hohn before the Paralympics.

Para club and discus thrower Pranav Soorma’s request for assistance under Target Olympics Podium Scheme (TOPS) to compete in the Para Athletics Championship in Krusevac, Serbia, and train for 10 days at the same location also got a go ahead from the MOC.

The MOC also approved assistance to triple jumper Eldhose Paul to compete in the Meeting Nikaia in France, boxer Lovlina Borgohain to take part in the Grand Prix- Czech Republic International Tournament and table tennis players Sreeja Akula and Manika Batra for playing in multiple international tournaments.

Manika’s proposal for assistance towards the purchase of a DHS Table to train in India and Para–Athlete Bhagyashree Jadhav’s request for assistance towards procurement of wheelchair and shot-put equipment were also sanctioned.

The MOC approved wrestler Antim Panghal’s request for assistance for boarding and lodging of her coach during UWW 2nd Ranking Series and the training camp at Olympic Training Centre, Tata, Hungary and badminton players Rakshitha Sree and Anmol Kharab’s request for assistance to compete in the Kaohsiung Masters (BWF super 100) event.

The meeting also approved the promotion of five TOPS athletes to core croup from development group.

They are boxers Nishant Dev, Jaismine Lamboria and Preeti Pawar as well as table tennis players Manav Thakkar and Archana Kamath.