Mission Olympic Cell (MOC) in its 86th meeting on November 18th approved Olympic Gold Medallist Neeraj Chopra’s proposal to train at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom (UK). Neeraj, along with coach Dr. Klaus Bartonietz and physiotherapist Ishaan Marwaha would be training at Loughborough for 63 days and are set to leave for the UK later this week.
Besides Neeraj, the MOC also cleared the proposals for shuttler Kidambi Srikanth, who, along with his coach and physiotherapist will be training at Prisma Sports Club, Jakarta, Indonesia for 29 days, wrestler Deepak Punia, who along with his physiotherapist would be training in Michigan, USA for 34 days, and Javelin thrower and Commonwealth Games medallist Annu Rani, who along with her physiotherapist would be training at Leichtathletik-Gemeinschaft (LG) Offenburg, Germany under coach Werner Daniels who had earlier also trained Neeraj Chopra.
Funding for these would be provided under the Sports Authority of India’s (SAI) Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) and would cover the player and their support staff’s flight, accommodation, local travel, and food costs among other expenditures. TOPS will also provide each athlete an out-of-pocket allowance of $50 per day for any other expense they might incur during their stay.
The total approximate cost for the training of all the above-mentioned athletes would be around Rs 94 lakh which would be cleared under the Ministry of Youth Affair and Sports’ (MYAS) National Sports Development Fund (NSDF)