India is home to a diverse population playing many different sports across the country. And Cricket is the most popular playing games in India. In the same way, Hockey, Badminton, Kabaddi, Tennis and Football follow are followed by Cricket.

Coming to Badminton, in 2012, Saina Nehwal won the Bronze Medal at London Olympics for India. Now in 2016, PV Sindhu won the Silver Medal at Rio Olympics. The only common point in both the athletes is that their Coach and he is Pullela Gopichand, the man behind India’s Rise in World Badminton.

Gopichand is the person who singlehandedly changed the sport of badminton in our country. It was very hard to a coach like Gopichand to survive the sport of Badminton in a country obsessed by Cricket. Earlier, he won the All England Championships but had lost the 2000 Sydney Olympics in a tragic way.

After winning the All England Championship, Gopichand could have retired to an easy life, but he did not. She thought of achieving for India what he could not do in the Olympics. He worked so hard to bring Badminton in India into the light and brought recognition and Sponsorship to the sport.

He had set up a world class training academy and started grooming the young talent. He trained his students with discipline and hard work. Out of this, he produced players like Kidambi Srikanth, P Kashyap, Saina Nehwal and P V Sindhu and much more. This kind of toughness is what has brought India its two medals at Olympics in a row.

“FOR INDIA TO HAVE ITS NATIONAL ANTHEM PLAYED AT A GLOBAL BADMINTON EVENT IS A BIG THING. I THINK THERE CANNOT BE A BIGGER MOTIVATION THAN THAT.”

He was awarded Dronacharya Award for his dedication and training such International players.