New Delhi, Apr 17 (IANS): Former athletes and coaches hailed the Sports Authority of India (SAI) for initiating a knowledge enhancement workshop for coaches. The workshops started on April 16, the first session of which was attended by Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju.

"SAI could not have chosen a better time for this workshop," said 2003 World Championships bronze medal winning former long jumper Anju Bobby George. "Right now the coaches are relatively free and during this time they are getting a chance to brush up their skills and exchange ideas with each other. Just the sheer number of coaches attending the sessions provides a great platform for knowledge sharing and enhancement. It was also great to see the Sports Minister and Director General of SAI attending the sessions. It shows how serious the ministry and SAI is about empowering coaches."

Former Olympian shooter and now current High Performance Coach, Indian Junior Rifle Team, Suma Shirur too praised the initiative. Taking to Twitter, Shirur said, "This is an amazing step in the right direction by the Sports Authority of India to promote sports science. A "game-changing" move as rightly said by Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju in the webinar. Great to hear you kicking off this programme with 4000+ attendee coaches from all over India."

Para High Jumper Sharad Kumar is one of them. Kumar who attended the online sessions said, "Fantastic online classes initiative by Athletics Federation of India, Sports Ministry and Sports Authority of India. I have attended both the classes till now and am looking forward to continuing till the end."

The online coaching sessions for swimming took place earlier this week, Hakimuddin Habibulla who represented India at the 2000 Olympics said, ""Great initiative by the Swimming Federation and Sports Authority of India to empower India's swimming coaches."