Indian shooters, training in Croatia and Italy, are scheduled to leave for Tokyo on July 16, for the Olympic Games.
The 13 rifle and pistol shooters, training in Zagreb, will leave with the coaches and a physio. The two skeet shooters — Mairaj Ahmad Khan and Angad Vir Singh Bajwa, along with coach Mansher Singh — training in Italy, will leave from Rome on the same day.
The entire shooting team will meet in Amsterdam to board the flight to the Japanese capital on July 17.
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The rifle and pistol shooters will have coaches Suma Shirur, Deepali Deshpande, Oleg Mikhailov, Samaresh Jung, and Ronak Pandit travelling with them. It is understood that accreditation procedures are being worked out for coaches Pavel Smirnov and Jaspal Rana. Both Jaspal and Mansher joined the teams recently, and had spent time in isolation, according to the prescribed protocol.
Even though the entire team has been vaccinated for the coronavirus, the organisers do not insist on the same. They have an uniform testing procedure for all the athletes and officials arriving for the Games in Tokyo.
In fact, the testing protocol and the health study starts a week or two before they board the flight to Tokyo.
IOC president Thomas Bach, who reached Tokyo recently, is scheduled to be on three days isolation, which goes to show that the Olympic family is being treated on par with everyone, as far as the sensitive COVID-19 situation is concerned.
The athletes and officials have a 70-page instruction playbook to follow. Every team will have a COVID-19 liaison officer to specifically take care of testing and medical procedures related to it. The athletes will be tested every day.
The organisers have clearly said to anyone with COVID-19 symptoms in the 14 days prior to the departure for the Games, “Don’t travel to Tokyo”.
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