Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports on Saturday informed that Mission Olympic Cell (MOC) in its 86th meeting held on 18 November approved foreign training camps for Olympic Gold Medallist Neeraj Chopra, shuttler Kidambi Srikanth, wrestler Deepak Punia, and Javelin thrower and Commonwealth Games medallist Annu Rani.

The statement from the Ministry said that the Sports Authority of India’s (SAI) Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) will provide funding for these four players and their support staff, which will include flight, accommodation, local travel, and food costs.

TOPS will also provide each athlete an out-of-pocket allowance of $50 per day for any other expense they might incur during their stay, the Ministry added.

It stated that Neeraj Chopra will train at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom (UK) along with coach Dr. Klaus Bartonietz and physiotherapist Ishaan Marwaha for 63 days and are set to leave for the UK later this week.

Kidambi Srikanth along with his coach and physiotherapist will be training at Prisma Sports Club, Jakarta, Indonesia for 29 days, wrestler Deepak Punia along with his physiotherapist would be training in Michigan, USA for 34 days, and Javelin thrower and Commonwealth Games medallist Annu Rani along with her physiotherapist would be training at Leichtathletik-Gemeinschaft (LG) Offenburg, Germany under coach Werner Daniels who had earlier also trained Neeraj Chopra.

The approximate total cost for the trainings which will come to around Rs 94 lakh, will be cleared by the Ministry of Youth Affair and Sports’ (MYAS) National Sports Development Fund (NSDF).