P. Gopi Chand is hopeful of an Indian shuttler clinching the individual gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Gopi said here on Monday that Indian badminton has been making steady strides every year. “Well, I think every year in the last few years has been better than the previous one. We won the bronze in 2012 (Saina Nehwal, London Olympics) and the first-ever silver in 2016 (P.V. Sindhu, Rio Olympics). Hopefully, in 2020, we will have the first-ever gold,” said Gopi, who has coached a number of world-class players at his academy in Hyderabad.
The 45-year-old, who was here to announce the list of seven boys and girls for residential training at the PGBA under the aegis of the IDBI Federal Life Insurance, said Saina was the first player to make a big impact.
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“For a long time before Saina and Sindhu arrived, badminton was primarily remembered for men’s players like Nandu Natekar, Suresh Goyal, Prakash (Padukone) Sir and Syed Modi. Saina was important to the change that happened. We needed someone with her kind of push, hunger and the will to win because being the first person to come out and win is very difficult. It is great to see what Sindhu has achieved (World Championship medal, Olympic medal and other triumphs) and you can still look at her and say “she has two Olympics to go at least and that is something fantastic.”
Winning formula
About his own career, Gopi said: “When I realised that I knew the formula for winning, my career was finished. So I just wanted to pass it (formula) on so that my trainees can win at a younger age. I am sure I have been successful in that because Sindhu won when she was very young. A lot of my players have done well at a young age.”
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The chosen seven (from a short-listed batch of 14): Abhinav Garg (Bengaluru), Naishaa Kaur Bhatoye (Mumbai), R. Sphoorthy and Showrya Kiran (Hyderabad), Sakshi Prakash (Dubai), Shanay K. Patel (Ahmedabad) and Vansh Dev (New Delhi).