NEW DELHI: In its Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOP), the Mission Olympic Cell has decided to include an entire team from the country for the very first time in history as each of the 18 players of the Indian men’s hockey team will receive a monthly allowance of Rs 50,000, the Sports Authority of India (SAI) stated in a press release.
Earlier, only individual athletes were deemed eligible to be a part of the scheme.
However, the Indian team coached by Harendra Singh, has been rewarded for its Silver medal-winning performance at the Champions Trophy in Netherlands in which they lost a closely contested final to Australia.
This is likely to be a massive incentive for the team as it will be participating in the upcoming Asian Games in Jakarta, possibly being the favourites to win the Gold medal.
Notably, two-time Olympic winner and wrestler Sushil Kumar has been permitted to hire two sparring partners and a physiotherapist to train in Georgia for an amount of Rs 662,000. A lot of athletes are reportedly training abroad for high level international competitions at present.
Among other sports, Gymnastics received a total grant of Rs 2.18 million while Davis Cup player Ramkumar Ramnathan will get Rs 1.26 million for training under Spanish coach Angel Gimenez Alonso and to pay for all competition and equipment expenses leading up to the Asian Games.
Archery has been awarded Rs 1.53 million, which will help the likes of Trisha Deb, Rajat Chauhan, Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Abhishek Verma to procure equipment and train under Italian coach Sergio Pagni for a period of 10 days at the SAI Sonepat centre ahead of the Asian Games.
