Pullela Gopichand
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. Readers will be able to edit existing articles and post new articles directly |
Contents |
The Champion who produces champions
Manne Ratnakar The Times of India 19 Aug 2016
Gopichand: Champion who produces champions
Pullela Gopichand was a champion before he started producing champions.He knows what it needs to reach the top. The 2001 All England champion, lost seven kilograms before he left for the Rio Olympics.Asked if he was not well, Gopi said: “No, it is because of training.“
The Dronacharya wakes up early in the morning, arrives at his academy by 3.454.00 and stays up till late in the evening. This was his schedule for most part of the last 12 years, since he decided to become the coach. And in the last two months, he forgot many times to take enough food or may be did not want to waste time on food.
“I am good like this. I need to stay in shape to play with the players and train them properly,“ he used to say .
After Gopichand won the All England he got injured and did not recover from that. It was then he realised that there was no proper system in India.Even an injury-rehab mechanism, which is a bare minimum for athletes, was not there in India. It was then he got determined to create such a system.
“I was shocked when we did not have a proper rehabilitation system in India. It was then that I thought of creating one. I don't want other players to suffer like me.My career was cut short because of injuries and I didn't want that to happen for others,“ he said.
The personal setback inspired him to create a world class academy in Hyderabad.His academy has everything.It took a Herculean effort for him to create that. But once that happened, the Sainas, the Sindhus, the Srikanths came. Now there is a hope that many more will come.
Sindhu got injured in January , 2015. Everyone thought that it was a minor injury . But by February , she was barely able to move her leg. But Gopi was there, playing the role of a doctor, a masseur and a caring elder .
As Sindhu was not able to move on court, Gopi decided to get something out of nothing.He placed a chair in the middle of the court and asked Sindhu to hit the shuttles from a sitting position. That helped Sindhu get some practice. And before every training session and after it he used to massage her leg -a sight one could never forget. A former All England champion, who had already achieved a lot as coach, still wants to help others as much as he could.It was this commitment that made him not the best coach but a great human being.
Pullela Gopichand's mission
How Gopi made Hyderabad India’s badminton capital
M Ratnakar | TNN
The Times of India 2013/08/11
Hyderabad: Pullela Gopichand’s unwavering commitment has made Hyderabad a powerhouse of Indian badminton, a factory which keeps churning out one promising player after another.
PV Sindhu’s bronze at the World Championships on Saturday was just the latest in a line of superlative feats achieved by players emerging from coach Gopi’s stable. In fact, this is a feat which has eluded even Saina Nehwal, who under Gopi has won close to 20 international titles, including a bronze at the Olympics. Then there are players like Parupalli Kashyap and RMV Gurusaidutt, who too have started registering impressive wins.
It’s a testament to Gopi’s unwavering commitment to his wards that Indian shuttlers have won more than two dozen international titles, at times even taking on undisputed giants China. The coach literally eats, sleeps and breathes the game. Just ask his wife, former player PVV Laxmi, or his mother Subbaravamma.
Gopichand owns a palatial house just four kilometers away from his academy, in the plush Jubilee Hills area here. But such is his focus and commitment that the chief coach of the Indian badminton team is seldom home during the day. He arrives at his academy at 4.15 in the morning and leaves the campus only after 7 pm.
Seeing his schedule and unwavering dedication, his worried family at some point decided to move to a rented house closer to the academy, so that Gopi could come home for lunch. But his mother and wife are still complaining.
This is the kind of dedication the 2001 All England champion has put in, in the process changing the face of Indian badminton. When he took over as chief coach in 2006, Gopi was given a four-year term with the aim of helping India do well at the Delhi Commonwealth Games in 2010. The results were phenomenal as the shuttlers bagged a rich haul of two gold, a silver and a bronze, an unheard of feat from India’s shuttlers till that point.
Even before the Commonwealth Games success, Saina Nehwal — who started training under Gopichand in 2004 — won several international titles. In fact, she became the face of Hyderabad’s badminton supremacy, a supremacy which began even before the Gopi era, when the city’s shuttlers were known for being successful at the national level.
They would, however, invariably falter on the world stage. Apart from Gopichand and Chetan Anand, not many made a mark on the international circuit. Thanks to Gopi, all that has changed. Today India has a bunch of players in the top 50 of the world rankings. A good number come from the Pullela Gopichand Academy.
With superior training and worldclass facilities at their disposal, the performance graph of the PGBA shuttlers has seen an upward curve. With eight international standard courts, a health club, a running track, swimming pool, rehabilitation and wellness centres, the academy has everything that a worldclass badminton player needs.
During his playing days, Gopi used to struggle to find good training centres and he realized the success of the Chinese, Indonesians and Malaysians was because of the vastly improved facilities at their disposal. For a player who lost most of his career to a leg injury, Gopi was determined to create a facility which could offer everything, including injury rehabilitation. He has done just that, that too in the short span of a decade.
Breakthrough
But he did not have it easy. In 2003, the then-Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu gave him five acres of land on a 45-year lease. Gopi soon approached Yonex and a few others to construct the academy. Very few responded but a determined Gopi refused to relent.
One day, over a cup of coffee, businessman Nimmagadda Prasad — popularly known as ‘Matrix’ Prasad — surprised Gopi by offering him a donation of about Rs 5 crore.
Within four years, the Gopichand Academy had become operational. By this time all the top players had shifted to this academy. Gopi also faced stiff resistance from senior players like Jwala Gutta and Chetan Anand, who questioned his experience and credentials. In 2009, the YS Rajasekhara Reddy government threatened to take over a part of the five-acre land. Gopi was forced to go to court and an amicable settlement took quite a while. Then came the Prajakta Sawant controversy, with the doubles player accusing Gopi of spoiling her career.
Queried if he wanted to quit coaching then, Gopichand had said these controversies made him even tougher. As Gopichand once said, “I believe Indians are good athletes. The only problem is we don’t have facilities and a system in place. We have created a system and facilities here and that’s why we are getting great results.”
With everything — infrastructure, coaching, talent and financial support — in place, there is no reason why Hyderabad cannot keep producing more Sainas, Sindhus, and Gopis.
TOP SINGLES PLAYERS FROM GOPI’S STABLE
Saina Nehwal: Olympic bronze medalist, has won about 20 international titles; best world ranking: 2.
PV Sindhu Bronze at World Championships and Malaysian GP Gold title; best world ranking 11.
Parupalli Kashyap: First Indian to make it to men’s singles Olympics quarters; Indian Grand Prix Gold title; best world ranking 6.
Kidambi Srikanth: First Indian to win Grand Prix title outside India; best world ranking 38.
Sai Praneeth: Shocked several top players like Taufik Hidayat; consistently reaching semifinals and finals of international events; best world ranking 37.
RMV Gurusaidutt: Won Tata Open and is ranked 20 in the world now.
HS Prannoy: reached finals of Bahrain Challenge; ranked 46 in the world now.
Arundhati Pantwane: won Bahrain Challenge; best world ranking 49.
Other talented shuttlers: Sikki Reddy, Aparna Balan, Arun Vishnu, Tarun Kona, Pranaav Chopra and Akshay Dewalkar have all qualified for World Championships in doubles.
The Gopichand Academy
Manne Ratnakar Aug 20 2016 : The Times of India (Delhi)
Flashback 1990: A young Pullela Gopichand was growing up in Hyderabad, hoping to become a top shuttler.But life wasn't easy -often he was provided with just one shuttle per day . Gopi and his contemporaries were strictly instructed not to play with hard hitters as the shuttle would lose shape. Forget other facilities like gym, rehab and quality coaches -players used to be delighted if they had one extra shuttle per day .
Gopi, who has shaped the career of PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal, struggled for everything -from a proper racquet, shoes and quality shuttles. But whenever he went abroad for tournaments the facilities available for his opponents left him in awe.
Once Gopi hung up his boots, he was determined to change the scenario. He took to coaching in 2004 and much to the surprise of many , was appointed the chief coach of the Indian team in 2006. Many criticised him and some seniors refused to train under Gopi.
Undeterred by all these, the former All England champion started his coaching at makeshift venues but all the while he had a vision to get a world-class academy in Hy derabad. Things were not easy when he embarked on his mission. He had already got five acres of land on 45-year lease from the then chief minister of Andhra Pradesh N Chandrababu Naidu in 2003. But there was no money to construct an academy .Many of his well-wishers advised Gopi to come up with a small structure but he was in no mood to compromise and wanted to get a world-class facility at any cost.
He had many friends and fans but very few were ready to provide the finances.When his hopes were fading, he received an unbelievable offer from businessman Nimmagadda Prasad, who surprised Gopi with a donation of Rs 5 crore.
It was then that the dream start ed to take shape. The academy soon became operational by 2008. By this time all the top players including Saina Nehwal had shifted to his academy .
During his playing days, Gopi used to struggle to find a proper academy . He realised that the success of the Chinese, Indonesians and Malaysians had a lot to do with good facilities. He created such world-class facilities in Hyderabad that the Asian Badminton Confederation (ABC) nominated it as the Asian Training Centre. With eight international courts, a health club with gym, athletics track, swimming pool, wellness centre, ice-bath etc., everything is available at the academy .
In a bid to keep up with the demand, Gopi with the assistance of Sports Authority of India (SAI), constructed another academy , 500 metres away from the existing one in 2015. There are nine courts at the new venue.
Within a couple of years after he started coaching, Gopi started producing results.Saina won the first international title in 2006 and followed it up with many more. But very few know that Indian shuttlers fared well at various international meets. However, the phenomenal achievements of Saina Nehwal dwarfed others' feats.
Gopi never believed in creating just one Saina. He always concentrated and worked on creating the next line of players. And then came Gurusaidutt, PV Sindhu, Saurabh Verma, HS Prannoy , Sai Praneeth and Kidambi Srikanth. Sindhu used to show a lot of spark and caught the attention of the world when she took bronze at the World Championships in 2013. Gopi used to train both Sindhu and Saina together initially . But after sometime he realised things were not working and had prepared separate schedules for them. Gopi is helped in his endeavour by 15 assistant coaches. He also gets South East Asian support staff from various academies. A lot of focus is given to the fitness of the players.
