More funding is required at grass-root level to identify hidden talent feels para-athlete Deepa Malik.
Participating at the "InRio" smartphone application launch on Wednesday to aid the differently-abled athletes at 2016 Rio Paralympic Games, Malik said funding at the initial levels will help many aspiring young athletes.
"There are many talented athletes in our nation. To identify them and help the athletes reach their dream, more funding at the grass-root level is required" she said.
She particularly called for improvement in infrastructure facilities for training. "Creating more training facilities for disabled athletes will help provide them with many places to nurture their talents at younger age. So funding is also needed to improve the training facilities for young and aspiring ones" she added.
She also stressed on the importance of having trained coaches specifically for disabled athletes. “Mostly coaches are present only for fully-abled athletes. So it is rare to find specific trained coaches for differently-abled candidates. Thus it will be helpful for athletes if more coaches of similar kind are present,” says Deepa.
For 2016 Rio Paralympics, she has set a primary target of shining in the field of shotput.
When speaking about the importance of "InRio" app to them, she added that the briefing about it is encouraging and the nutritional guidance which is present in it is what she finds as the most intriguing part.
"Each athlete has a different diet routine, so providing specific assistance in that department is helpful" she said.
The app has been conceptualized by Arhan Bagati, an 11th standard student. He feels the best feature about the app is its ability to find the necessary places in Rio by acting as a guide.