Did Indian archers miss a foreign coach?

NEW DELHI: With Indian archers returning empty-handed from the Olympics yet again, top practitioners of the sport feel India would have fared much better had the team trained under a foreign coach.
"Most of the teams that competed in London were coached by Koreans. In fact, Brazil, which will host the next Games, has already hired two Korean coaches to help with their preparations," a top archer said after the team made a quiet return to the country.
Though India's progress in the world arena is credited to a South Korean coach, he was never in the good books of the Archery Association of India (AAI).
"All the top archers in India are trainees of Lim Chae Woong (who was India's coach from 2002 to 2008). We used to telephone him in Korea regularly to fix any technical problems and he would solve it in no time," he added.
Woong, previously with the Tata Archery academy, has now been roped in by the Indian Army to work with the archers at the Army Sports Institute in Pune. "His presence would have really helped. Woong is too good at spotting talent and fine-tuning your technique.
"In fact, it was Woong who spotted L Bombayla Devi back in 2005 and helped her reach the level that she is today," he said. In the run-up to the Olympics, Jayanta Talukdar and Deepika Kumari had even gone to Seoul, with the help of the Tata Archery Academy, to train under Woong.
The other top archers also tried to travel to Korea, but they did not get any money from the National Sports Development Fund (NSDF) despite repeated attempts.
TOI had highlighted the archers' plight several months back but their efforts proved futile with little support from the AAI in getting the funds released by the sports ministry. "After trying for several months we stopped thinking about it as it was beginning to affect our preparations," a top archer claimed.
"These may sound as small things and as excuses, but the absence of a foreign coach, physio and mental trainer would have made a difference. We struggled without a physio and we had to go out of the ground to take the physio's help," he added.