NEW DELHI: Ronak Pandit, India's high-performance manager in pistol discipline, will travel to Zagreb at the end of this month to monitor training of Olympic-bound pistol shooters.
I couldn't accompany the national team which left for Croatia last week due to family problems, but I've applied for visa and will go as early as possible, " Pandit told IANS from Mumbai.
India have earned five Olympic quota places in pistol events and eight in rifle. Two skeet shooters have also got tickets to Japan.
The pistol shooting team consists of Abhishek Verma, Saurabh Chaudhary, Manu Bhaker, Rahi Sarnobat and Yashaswini Singh.
Pandit, a former international pistol shooter, said he wants feedback from all the five shooters on what they did over the last 45 days after the World Cup in March since there was no national camp.
"Feedback is important to move forward. We can't change the equipment with just two months to go for the Olympics. There will not be any major changes in the training programme, but what we can do is erase minor flaws that inadvertently creep in during training, " he added.
Currently pistol coach Ved Prakash is with the team in Zagreb while foreign expert Pavel Smirnov, who couldn't accompany the team to Croatia last week due to visa issue, is expected to join the squad this week.
Pandit said the national team will compete in the European Shooting Championships, starting May 21 in Osijek, in the Minimum Qualifying Score (MQS) category so that there is no pressure to perform at optimum level.
"There has been a long break in training. The European competition will act as a practice match as pistol shooter Rahi Sarnobat has just recovered from Covid-19. We don't expect to shoot high scores in European championships, " said Pandit.
After the European Championships, the Indian team will prepare for the World Cup starting June 21 in Zagreb. "It will be another good opportunity to polish competitive skills, " he added.