10 Coaches Who Helped Indian Champions To Shine At The Olympics

The Olympics are a huge deal. Even if someone doesn’t win, they still are the champions for getting selected for the event. The selection is a very hectic process, which requires a lot of proper training, mentoring, diets, etc. And all of that depends on the coaches.

Here are the 10 coaches who mentored participants this year:

1. Mirabai Chanu coach Vijay Sharma

Our new winner, Mirabai Chanu, has been trained under Vijay Sharma since 2014.

He is originally from the Jammu district. Reportedly he also trained players like Poonam Yadav, Satish Shivlingama, and Vikas Thakur. Since 2012, he has been the national and certified coach of the Indian Weightlifting Federation. According to him, he was a big sports freak since his school days. He did participate in a lot of sports events as well.

2. Lovlina Borgohain coach Sandhya Gurung

Remember Lovlina Borgohain, the boxer who won the bronze medals at the Tokyo Olympics? Our champion was trained by Sandhya Gurung. She is a former boxer herself, who battled paralysis just to become a national-level boxer.

She is from Gangtok. And her last game was in 2008 when she won a gold medal. Since 2010, she has been working as a coach. In the year 2000, she competed in the 68kg category.

3. PV Sindhu coach Park Tae Sang

PV Sindhu, our pride, who won bronze in badminton says that she was extremely motivated by her coach, Park Tae Sang. She always credited her Korean coach for her success in her career.

In an interview Park said, “this is an important moment in my coaching career because as a player and a coach I never won an Olympic medal before. This is a first for me.” He is a retired professional badminton player, originally from South Korea coaching Sindhu since 2019. He also went viral for speaking in Hindu during an interview.

4. Ravi Kumar Dahiya coach Satpal Singh

Ravi Kumar Dahiya, who won the silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics, got trained by Satpal since he was 10 years old. He is also known as Guru Satpal, he’s a wrestling coach and a former wrestler.

5. Indian Men’s Hockey Team coach Graham Reid

This year the Indian Men’s Hockey Team created history, by getting qualified for the semifinals for the first time in 41 years. Obviously, the players made it happen, but what if the coach wasn’t there to guide them through and train them in the best way possible?

Graham played as a midfielder and defender for the Australian team when he played hockey. He was also a part of the team that won silver during the 1992 Olympics in Spain.

In April 2019 he was appointed as the head coach for the Indian national team for men.

6. Indian Women’s hockey team coach Sjoerd Marijne

Indian Women’s hockey team did become the talk of the town. They fought for the bronze medal but unfortunately couldn’t make it, but they’re still our champions.

Sjoerd Marjine trained and coached them through this entire battle. He originally hails from the Dutch province of North Brabant. In February 2017, he was appointed as the coach for the Indian women’s national team.

7. Kamalpreet Kaur coach Rakhi Tyagi

Kamalpreet Kaur did get a good stand at the Tokyo Olympics for being a discus thrower. He is coached by Rakhi Tyagi. Kamalpreet has been trained by her since 2014.

8. Deepa Punia coach Murad Gaidarov

Murad has been an Olympics silver medal winner in men’s freestyle in 2008 already. Though Deepa Punia lost his bronze medal, he still kept trying and that’s what matters.

He was appointed to train Deepak in October 2019.

9. Neeraj Chopra coach Klaus Bartonietz

Our new champion Neeraj Chopra has been trained by Klaus Bartonietz. Klaus has been officially training Neeraj for the past two years.

10. Bajrang Punia coach Shako Bentinidis

Shako Bentinidis is the coach of Bajrang Punia, who won the Bronze medal after defeating Kazakhstan’s Daulet Niyazbekov in the men’s freestyle 65kg category. He is a three-time Olympian himself.