India’s chief national badminton coach, P. Gopi Chand, feels that the ‘Legends Vision’ initiative, happening for the first time in India, by some of the greats of the sport including Peter Gade, Taufik Hidayat, Lee Chong Wei and Lin Dan on November 4 in Mumbai should be ‘the biggest badminton festival’ India could have hoped for.
In a chat with The Hindu on Thursday, Gopi said that the coming together of these greats was like someone like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal coming together under one roof to give the fillip to the sport.
“It would be interesting to see how the three-hour programme, sponsored by Yonex , is organised to take optimum use of the presence of these truly wonderful players,” Gopi said about the World Tour which actually started in 2015 with the specific intent of creating greater awareness of the sport, increased participation, communicate their personal visions for the future of the sport and also importantly give something back to the sport by touring their home countries.
“By all means, the event should be a huge morale booster to the sport in India with already the likes of Sindhu, Saina, Srikanth, Praneeth winning major titles in the recent past. The young talent or for that matter even the big names of Indian badminton could not have asked for a better programme to provide the right kind of inspiration,” the chief coach said.
“Yes, though because of the Senior National starting in Nagpur on November 2, some of the second-rung players may not be there but all the big names of Indian badminton will be there in Mumbai,” he said.
Gopi also revealed that these legends are bound to have a huge impact on the badminton scenario. “The whole objective is to have interactions with these players, have some exhibition matches and also some invaluable, motivational talks by them to the select young talent and seniors who are expected to be there on the occasion,” he said.
The former All England champion feels that these kind of events can be held more regularly given the kind of craze the sport has in India.
“There is nothing wrong if these event are taking across India to usher in a new chapter in terms of luring more youth into the sport,” he said.
Interestingly, Gopi will also be there but more in an advisory role given his reputation both as a former champion shuttler and now as one of the most sought-after coaches in Asia itself.
