IOA executive council to send recce team to Paris to identify pre-Olympics training facilities

The team will work on identifying the requirements of Indian athletes to prepare for participation in the Paris Olympics.

IOA president PT Usha nominated vice-president Gagan Narang (in image) and joint-secretary Kalyan Chaubey to conduct a joint recce of the Paris 2024 facilities. | Photo Credit: THE HINDU

The newly-elected executive Council of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) met here on Sunday under its president P T Usha and decided to send two of its members to Paris to identify facilities for the pre-Olympic Games training for the country’s athletes.

Usha nominated vice president Gagan Narang and joint secretary Kalyan Chaubey to conduct joint recce in Paris for the 2024 Olympics, along with officials of Sports Ministry, a release said.

The team will work on identifying the requirements of Indian athletes to prepare for participation in the Paris Olympics.

“The recce would be done in phases, with the phase 1 focussing on Pre-Games training of the athlete in Paris, finding out the distance of various venues of respective athletes, availability of hotels and distance and in between competition Strategic accommodation and meals planning for the participating athletes,” the release stated.

Once the recce is done, the team will also identify closest training facilities for the athletes, which will be similar to the actual venues, in terms of conditions and weather.

“The detailed Paris recce will be focusing on identification of pre-Games training venues and study will be done on the following aspects to identify training venues: “Distance from Games village to venue for all sports, details of venues of all the sports, accommodation for support staff not staying in the Games village, Indian restaurants/Indian food availability, take requirements from NSFs and visit the venues for all sports, check pre-event training venues.” The recce team will also “touch base with Indian community in Paris with the assistance of the Indian Mission in France.”

The meeting was also attended by vice president Rajlaxmi Singh Deo, joint secretary Alaknanda Ashok and executive council members Amitabh Sharma, Harpal Singh, Rohit Rajpal, Dola Banerjee and Yogeshwar Dutt.