India's only Olympic individual gold medallist Abhinav Bindra slammed the selection panel for not nominating seasoned coach Jaspal Rana for the Dronacharya Award.
Rana is a multiple Asian Games gold medallist marksman. He has groomed the likes of Manu Bhaker, Saurabh Chaudhary and Anish Bhanwala into world-class shooters. Bindra quipped that his wards can prove the selection committee wrong with their performance in 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
"I can attribute much of my success to having wonderful coaches. @jaspalrana2806 has earned my respect as one of the best & it is disappointing to see him overlooked for the Dronacharya. Hope this gives his wards the impetus to train harder &prove the committee wrong at Tokyo2020", Bindra tweeted.
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Also, Rana thanked Bindra for his support. "Thanks @Abhinav_Bindra your words are more important for me. But I am not trying to prove myself to anyone," he tweeted.
The selection panel nominted Vimal Kumar (badminton), Sandeep Gupta (table tennis) and Mohinder Singh Dhillon (athletics) for the Dronacharya Award regular category while Mezban Patel (hockey), Rambir Singh Khokar (kabaddi), Sanjay Bhardwaj (cricket) were picked for the Dronacharya Award in the lifetime category.
Dronacharya Awards are given to honour eminent coaches who have successfully trained sportspersons or teams and enabled them to achieve outstanding results in international competitions. The award carries a cash prize of Rs 5 lakh.
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(PTI Inputs)
