New Delhi: Deepali Deshpande spotted an unhealthy trend just days after Tokyo. The debacle at the Olympics was taking a toll on her mental health. While driving to the range in Worli, Mumbai where she has been going for years, she inadvertently took the flyovers twice.

“When it happened for the second time in a span of 15 days, I was alarmed. I went blank while driving on the route I have been taking for years. I realised that I have to work on myself, something was not right.,” recalls Deepali, who was high performance manager (rifle) during Tokyo Games.

Deepali immediately took steps to set it right but it just wasn’t her. The impact on the shooters was probably even greater.

“I started doing yoga, and physical training. Even shooters were feeling it that way. We were so focussed on something that you forget what else you like. I was trying to figure out what else I like besides shooting and I just couldn’t find the answers at that time. Thankfully, I have a great family, a very close knit one, so I spent time with them, had a family get together,” said Deepali, who won bronze at the Busan Asian Games.

All that helped in putting her life back on track -- getting back to the range and coaching with a steadfast mindset for the Paris Olympics. But the wounds only really healed when her trainee Swapnil Kusale won a bronze medal at the Paris Olympics in rifle 3 positions. Another trainee Arjun Babuta came close to a medal but missed by a whisker.

Looking back to the period when she was shattered with the performance in Tokyo, Deepali can now afford to smile. But the journey was far from easy.

As rifle coach in Tokyo -- she was made the senior team coach in December 2019 just months before COVID struck and disrupted the plans -- Deepali thought it wise to look inwards. There was hype around a bunch of young shooters who had done so well in the build-up. The rifle team performed way below expectations. Deepali desperately searched for answers: was it the Covid pandemic and the break that disturbed the rhythm of shooters, or the unusually long pre-training camp in Croatia that led to the abysmal performance?

From 2022 onwards, she was not retained as the national coach. It was then that she decided to shift focus on six of her trainees and give them individual attention.

“Blaming anybody else or the situation would not have helped. I was there with the team, there are a lot of things maybe I could have done and I could not. I got calls from Shriyanka (Sadangi), Akhil (Sheoran), Arjun (Babuta) whom I have been training and they wanted to start for Paris. I called them to Mumbai and gradually things started to become normal.”

There were less than three years to prepare and she wanted a fresh approach, taking lessons from Tokyo.

“I was a coach with the national team (NRAI) for 10 years, having joined as chief coach of the junior programme in 2012. There is certainty of occupation and routine like going to national camps, planning and preparing the shooters. So, once I was out, it took some time to get used to the new routine. I was on my own, so I had to plan for training, ammunition, find ranges etc.”

Deepali took the challenge head on, even telling Swapnil if need be she would spend money for his ammunition. “I told him there is no time to look for finances. ‘You can always pay me back’.”

“It is difficult to handle so many elite shooters at one time. You have to think of equipment. ammunition, technical challenges, every small thing. All of that kept me going. Good thing was that I could focus entirely on these six shooters.”

Deepali also brushed up her coaching skills. While doing documentation for the NIS coaching course, she understood many finer technical aspects.

“I studied small minute technical details. I can say I am much more polished from what I was three years ago. I wanted to make these shooters technically solid so that whatever happens on the day they should be prepared there.”

She also made Swapnil and others work with mental trainers and nutritionists.

“I realised there is a lot of noise, distraction before the Olympics. We need to take all that into account and be ready for anything and everything. I started searching for a mental trainer for everyone. The focus on having a nutritionist and mental trainer has paid off really well, especially for Swapnil and Arjun.”

The ghosts of Tokyo kept coming back though. It was only when all six of her shooters qualified that Deepali was able to enjoy the pictures she had taken along with the team during the Croatia camp before Tokyo. “Believe me those images disturbed me for quite some time. Only when they won the quota places then I became comfortable looking at those wonderful pictures.”

Deepali herself did not go to the Paris Olympics because she had prepared them well. After seeing Arjun agonisigly finishing fourth, she was relieved when Swapnil won the bronze. “I never felt that I needed to prove anything to anyone. I invested so much of my time and so much of my shooters time and their youth, that I thought I have to deliver.”

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