The people behind India’s biggest shooting stars are crashing and burning — struggling in the times of a global pandemic. This includes even the most high-profile coaches in the Indian shooting eco-system, Deepak Dubey and Amit Sheoran.

Dubey, coach of world number one rifle-shooter Divyansh Panwar, can hardly pay rent. And Sheoran – the man who discovered Asian Games and Youth Olympics gold medallist Saurabh Chaudhary – claims that five of his wards who were certain to make the national team could be on the verge of quitting on him.

“The whole pyramid has been affected and the signs will be visible soon. We might go a couple of steps back before we actually being to recover,” said Suma Shirur, a former world record holder in 10m air rifle.

“Any more delays in the reopening of these academies will not only affect the number of shooters coming into the state and national-level competitions but also their overall quality,” said Panwar.

India’s growing profile in the sport — a record 15 Olympic quota berths in Tokyo Olympics is proof — had led many former shooters to cash in on the boom by setting up schools across big cities and small towns and even villages. With large fixed costs such as rent and electricity to deal with even behind padlocked front doors, the future’s uncertain for most of them during these unprecedented months of Covid-19.

“I know of a couple of clubs in Gurgaon that have shut shop. Basically, school-going youngsters are the ones one who join these academies. In fact, I also started my shooting career like this,” said Panwar.

“With no funding coming in, it’s a really tough job to keep these academies, which are the feeder lines of the sport, afloat,” said Shirur, high performance coach of the junior national team who runs the Eklavya Shooting Club in Navi Mumbai.

Dubey’s Tapasya Shooting Sports Academy in Faridabad had 35 shooters before the lockdown in March. He is not sure whether there would be even three left whenever training resumes.

“Children have stopped coming. Rent is a big issue and you have to pay in full whether the range is operational or not,” said the former national shooter. For the eight-lane range, Dubey said he pays a monthly rent of Rs 40,000.

“I started in January and within two months we had to shut down. Initially, I had rented the place for Divyansh. There were 2-3 other children who were willing to contribute with the rent so we went ahead,” said Dubey, who is still asking for the rent to be reduced. “A lot of money was spent in setting up the range, installing air-conditioners and electronic target machines.”

Meanwhile, Sheoran runs a range in Benoli village in Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat – where Chaudhary once walked in and made them both famous in a short space of time. “Three of my students were sure to make it to the national team and another two were knocking on the doors. All that effort has probably been wasted,” said Sheoran, who coaches 30 students, some travelling from villages 25km away.

Sheoran now visits trainees’ houses to fix equipment and spruce up home ranges so that their routines are not interrupted. “But there are very few children like Saurabh who can keep motivating themselves,” he added.

NO ONE SPARED

Former rifle shooter Amandeep, whose Eminence Shooting Academy in Faridabad is not far from Delhi’s Karni Singh range, trains over 30 pistol and rifle shooters. “With the burden of EMIs and a rent of around Rs 70,000 a month, I had to send four in the staff on unpaid leave two months into the lockdown,” he said.

Parents are wary of sending children to train in the time of the novel coronavirus, added Amandeep, either due to the virus itself or even due to their financial situation.

Anand Shasidhar, winner of 16 national medals, has a different business model but he hasn’t been spared either. A rifle coach who also trains shooters in the Madras Regimental Company, Shashidhar operates on a profit-sharing basis with schools that provide land gratis for the range. “But if the school is closed and I cannot run the range there, I incur losses,” he said.

Shashidhar also runs Kadamba Sports, which has ranges in Bengaluru and Mysore and boarding facilities for advanced training. He has around 80 trainees in Bengaluru and the academy gets 36 shooters from across India every year for specialised training. In Mysore, Shashidhar teaches 200 shooters and has a partnership with the Karnataka sports department which sends students for weekly classes.

“I had an enrolment of about 630 students in April-May for summer camps, which is wiped out,” he said.

Amandeep said competitions are unlikely this year and when they do happen, there will be a dip in performance. “There is no motivation left. You can’t tell them to keep doing dry training (firing without live ammunition) and look at long-term gains,” he said. “The shooters tell me they started dry training but gradually lost motivation… I feel the attrition rate will be very high once things get back to normal.”

FUTURE TENSE

Shashidhar said the impact won’t be immediate. “What will not happen is fresh blood coming and challenging the established shooters.”

Arvind Tomar, whose range in Benoli is not very far from Sheoran’s academy, said many come to his centre hoping to hone shooting skills and join the Army.

“I train 40 shooters at my centre. On an average, about five trainees from my academy are recruited as jawans. About 25 shooters from Baghpat in the age group of 17-21 join the Army every year,” he said.

“But because of the pandemic, recruitment has stopped. There are about 15-16 shooting academies in the district and all have been badly hit.”

Chhaya Adak’s savings have all but disappeared while her shooting range has remained shut. Adak, who excelled in shooting after an international career in weightlifting, invested around Rs 40 lakh in the Global Shooting Sports Academy in Dwarka in 2018. Before the first lockdown began, the Arjuna awardee had over a 100 trainees.

“The losses we have suffered in the last four months are huge. We are running up electricity bills in the thousands every month. Then, we have GST, registrations, NRAI (National Rifle Association of India) certifications,” said Adak. “The government should give us some incentives. If we don’t survive, the future of shooters who train at our ranges will also be uncertain.”