Asian indoor silver medalist Chitravel credits Cuban coach Bentajos’ training for her performance

Triple jumper Praveen Chitravel, who recently won a silver medal at the Asian Indoor Championships in Kazakhstan, has benefited greatly from the training methods of his Cuban coach Yoandry Betanzos, who teaches his wards through actual jumps rather than verbal instructions. Chitravel has been taking training from two-time World Championship silver medalist Betanzos at the Inspire Institute of Sport (IIS) in Bellary, Karnataka from October-November 2021 and has been scaling new heights since then.

He joined the 17m club last year with a jump of 17.18m at the National Interstate Championship. Chitravel said in a ‘virtual’ conversation, “My previous coaches used to give verbal instructions about the technique and the way to jump, but Betanjos is different.” He also jumps with me and I can learn techniques from his jumps. ,

“It’s like a ‘live’ demonstration because he trains (the technique) directly through his jumps,” he said. I watch their jumps and learn from the techniques. This helps a lot as I can see with my own eyes and apply the techniques. I can improve on my weaknesses. Betanjos retired in 2015, just 41 years old. He has a personal best performance of 17.65m in triple jump.

Chitravel broke the national indoor record on February 10 in Astana with a jump of 16.98m to win the silver medal. With this performance, he bettered Amarjeet Singh’s earlier record of 16.26m. Chitravel said, “The Asian Indoor Championship was not in our schedule, but around 20 days back I decided that I will participate in it. “My target this year is to do well in the World Championship and win a medal in the Asian Games. So thought the experience of competing with some of the top Asian players would be beneficial for us as I will be participating in the Asian Games.