Collage of representational images for the sport of shooting, boxing, cycling and hockey
NEW DELHI: The moment things start looking a little better, it strikes again. That’s been the nature of the yet untamed coronavirus, which continues to disrupt India’s plans to get sports back on track.
The latest setback happened at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range (DKSSR) in Delhi, where a coach tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday. The Sports Authority of India (SAI) assuaged fears with its statement that “she (the coach) did not visit the field of play or interacted with any athlete training at the centre”, but the fact remains that the coach had been inside the DKSSR campus, where a few of the core-group shooters have been training over the last couple of weeks.
It further disrupted the National Rifle Association of India‘s (NRAI) plans to hold a national camp for shooters, which was initially planned for an August 1 start, but now stares at another uncertain period of waiting and watching.
The story with hockey isn’t much dissimilar.
The men’s and women’s teams left for their homes in June for a break, after spending the entire period of lockdown at the SAI centre in Bengaluru. The national camp for both the teams was supposed to resume at the same venue on July 19, but the cases of coronavirus spiked in Karnataka and the state government announced a further one-week lockdown from July 15.
The players now wait for an official communication from Hockey India.
The boxing camp finally got underway at the National In