India Badminton

As I said before lack of co-ordination, mistrust and clashing egos are ruining this sport in the country. On top of that BAI lacks the leadership and not only that they also lack a sense of direction. Because they are one dimensional, and that one dimension is Gopichand. They are pretty much relying on his expertise. This is very unhealthy way of running a sport. No doubt he has done great things but that cannot be an excuse. They need to be multidimensional, get people involved, take initiatives (not only monetary-wise,*cough* IBL), develop leadership qualities and start whipping some a**es to get them disciplined. Unlike CBA, BAI is democratic like its host country doesn't mean it needs to be run like one. BAI needs to grow some back bone and wield some of its powers (on only few occasions where it sees fit) for the betterment of the team's chances in SC. But its too late now.

Its unfortunate that Ajay and Anand are not working with Gopi full-time. Usually, everyone needs to attend the national camp regardless of their association with other academies. So theoretically they should be preparing together for the SC if he's on the team. I don't have a source to back it up but its purely an educated guess.

 

I don't think the association should be run in an un-democratic way - frankly, there's no need for that. However, it needs to be clear that decisions are made by the appointed people, ideally a number of coaches (more than one to avoid the most blatant favoritism) and maybe a couple officials - without any further outside influences, though.
People who aren't involved in the players' training should not have a say as they can't judge the players and their capabilities.
Concerning the Indian association specifically, they need to do more than just rely on Gopichand's academy - they need to get a decent support system for their athletes if they want to succeed and also try to get coaching and scouting systems running. Without a number of good coaches doing the prep work, even the world's best coach couldn't do very much in one facility, as he could hardly be expected to find the best talents from all over the country by himself and develop them all by himself.
One of China's main keys to success is their strong infrastructure, having qualified coaches in every part of the country, and having provincial squads who already train in a very professional, organized way.

 

I didn't mean BAI to be run un-democratic way, what I meant was BAI not to be run like a dysfunctional-Indian-Democracy way. I want BAI to have a sense of direction and leadership. I hate autocratic leadership no matter how good and honest the leader is. Its not PGC who wants to the show but its BAI who wants him to run the show. Atleast that's how it appears to be from the media coverage. Everybody singing the song of PGC, players and officials alike. He is getting his due share of respect but people unknowingly fueling his ego right now and it will show its after effects in few years down the line.

IMO, BAI should rather be working on schemes for developing infrastructure rather than running after money minting schemes like IBL which are more likely to be a flop. People may start debating that if IBL succeeds it will develop the infrastructure. Sure it will. But it will fill up the coffers of the BAI's top brass faster than the actual intended development and then there comes in the politics and fight for the control. It's a routine which we have witnessed a gazillion times since the independence from the British.

They should use PGC's expertise in coaching and spread it across the country. Its the poor coaching system that's causing the hindrance. Of course they are doing it in the name of "work shops" but I feel its too slow. Now is the high time its an aspect which needs to pursued aggressively. Hit the iron when its hot. They should create a pool of good coaches with proper coaching techniques imparted to them because we know there is no dearth of talent and potential in the country. A proper layered coaching system has to be developed, for a population this huge, where players graduate one layer at a time and with the top layer representing the country across all age categories. BAI is utterly incompetent in imagining such schemes.

 

Please, dont want to take badminton the tennis way in India.... Lets not talk about the infights its going through with the players & the association, the Olympics fiasco is a classic one, I dont expect an Indian sports org to function professionally, if there is money there would be politicians, and the politics in India is self centered... So called 'Democracy' of the Indian Sports authorities have led India to get a warning from the Olympics Association and the shameless fellows making a mockery of it sill persisted and caused an ouster from the IOA... Yes when a single person becomes powerful it could be dangerous but you can always see and monitor that... You can't just expect to make profits with no investment at all.

Results started to come up in India from he players not with BAI, but with Prakash Padukone and Gopi, who have sacrificed so much selflessly. I would rather doubt the collective BAI then these fellow gentlemen.

There is enough to start working on with, till the land, sow the seeds, take care of it and then they may think of harvesting it...

 

I have already watched that situation in many tournaments. That happens here everytime .. Don't wanna blame BAI or Gopichand or anybody. BUt my point is what is going to happen if they don't wanna concentrate on doubles.. For every word discussed here , the solution will be attained when india plays China tomorrow in Sudhirman cup. If they take one point atleast, then that would be a great achievement . If you expect an average student(doubles) to perform very well in the exam (100%) without extra treatment (perfect coaching and experience), that will lead to catastrophy. If any of the doubles players from india are able to get atleast one set in any of the doubles' matches tomorrow against china, then i think they will be able to give good fight against indonesians day after tomorrow. But .... Will they be able to do it?? I pity now..

 

Well, it is interesting that he was even able to build his own academy let alone be successful at that. He never had a backup team to begin with. He created his own team. During his 20 year career as a player he has seen and read the system in & out. We all know that he is a very keen observer, we see him taking notes all the time during the games. He knew what he is was doing and also knew how he needed to do it.

Here's an anecdote from his life, back in year 2000 during Sydney Olympics when he was at the peak form of his playing career but he lost in 2nd round to Hendrawan. Gopi was devastated by this loss 'coz knew he was far better than the opponent whom he lost to. He was world no.6 at that time and had beaten some of the best. After the first round match Gopi observed that his body was very stiff and sore aching all over and he could not understand why. That night in the lobby he saw that the Chinese team was carrying ice bags to their room but he did not care much about it, more about that later. He lost the next round due to hamstring. Later, after the olympics due to his persisting nature he researched as to why his body ached so much during Olympics even though he was in his prime fitness. Then he made the discovery for his loss. The Badminton matches during 2000 Sydney Olympics were being played on a concrete floor, which he and his team was totally unaware of. And the reason the Chinese team was carrying large bags of ice was for treating the aching bodies of the Chinese players. Gopi researched and understood this fact.
And why Am I telling you all this? I am telling story to show how ignorant and ill prepared the support system was, and is to this day, that they didnt even know such a fundamental thing and this just doesn't end here but to keep it short I wont go in to them. After this revelation Gopi felt so much anguish that if only he knew this fact he could've atleast made it to the quarters if not semis. You know what happened after he learned about this fact i.e. the ice pack treatment? All England Championship! Yes, back then the AE was being played on concrete floor 'coz the wooden floors were not a standard yet so nobody cared. Yes this time he was prepared for 'it' for he knew the remedy (ice-pack) and as we know he won the AE .

To make long story short, the above example is one of the many he noted during his career what the support system lacked. Being a keen observer and a persistent guy, he always did a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) for his failure every time and every time he came up with an answer. He had to solve these little issues himself. Many people question his greatness because his only major achievement was AE. For a player who was spending more time doing RCA's than practicing, due to his incompetent and ignorant support system, winning AE itself was nothing short of greatness to me. He didnt have the luxury the Chinese and rest of the affluent teams had, yet he defied all odds and beat them at their own game.

Gopi quit the game when he was like 30 'coz his body had it enough and as there was no proper system and infrastructure in place he saw no worth in continuing. He took it upon himself to give back to the sport he loved so dearly and wanted to provide his juniors the support he lacked through out his playing career. And we see it today his efforts bearing the fruits. Unfortunately, since he was a singles player his expertise is limited to that category and we understand why India doesnt have a good doubles team. As Cheung rightly pointed out, it would take atleast 7-10 years for India to produce a world beating doubles team IF any of the current doubles team takes it upon themselves to give back to the sport like Gopi did. It took Gopi 8 years to build the current team excluding SN as she was already a prodigious child when Gopi started coaching.

 

@Cheung Sorry I got deviated from your question. My whole blabbering was that, the success of his academy and coaching can be attributed to his keen observations and RCA's he did while playing. He noted what all the support system lacks, the gaps and the loopholes. He just worked on those aspects trying to bridge those gaps, plug those loopholes. His emphasis was on fitness, technique, injury management and the game strategy in that order. He procured all that was need to achieve the above goals. He recruited physio's to create weight training and dietitians to create diet programs to make players stronger, employed himself and got few INA coaches to impart the technique and the game strategy, created proper injury management programs by making player's schedules with healing or recovery periods so as that let the players play enough to maintain their ranking and not aggravate their injury at the same time. This explains as to why SN was able to maintain her ranking despite her injuries and same with other Indian players unlike their previous generations.

For a Chinese or an Indonesian this is not a something new, they take the above for granted. That does not hold true for Indians until now.

In my previous post, the reason I emphasized on the creating a pool of coaches was because Indian coaching system lacked the knowledge and acumen of Gopi. And you cannot create good players unless you have good coaches. And we cannot always rely on once-in-a-while prodigious talent all the time.

I also mentioned that players like Chetan, Arvind, Jwala and Anup made some mistakes and those were not getting along with Gopi when started out as National Coach. Gopi emphasized on the discipline and a strict training regimen which didn't go down well with the then 'Senior' players who were 'lazy'. No wonder languishing down some where in obscurity excluding Jwala, who swallowed her pride for her career. And Gopi also let them go as they all were past their prime so he concentrated more on the younger generation. Sad facet of reality.

Coming to doubles, I gave 7-10 years time against your's 10-15 years time for a good doubles team is because we already have few doubles teams on the verge of retiring, Rupesh Kumar & Sanave Thomas and Diju & Gutta and may be Aparna Balan some time later. We dont know how many of them will get in to coaching but at least one of among them will.

Its mind boggling, how one academy can create such huge ripples in the entire sport. Its both fascinating and scary at the same time. It shows how reliant the country is on that one academy. Its creating a single point of failure. What if something happens and Gopi stops coaching all together due to some unknown reasons. What happens then? Think about it.

I too don't quite remember the nature of his injuries, I have to surf through his book. He was certainly plagued with a lot of injuries post AE. Although he could've continued playing like Taufik but he had the foresight that letting it go was more respectable and also by then he was already contemplating building his own academy and start a second innings as a coach. He just couldn't continue playing for various reasons that's for sure.

 

So 5-0 CHN-IND is on the cards, unless Sindhu beats Yihan. Though I think if Sindhu pushes herself she could upset Yihan, Yihan should take it given her vast experience.

The second closest should be WD. Kashyap shouldn't trouble CL, considering the current form. Akshay Devalkar and Pranav Chopra should hardly trouble Liu/Qiu, who are totally on the role. I think there is no pair in the world, who could beat them right now considering their form.

MD and XD should be very one sided matches.

Having said that, badminton is a game of uncertainties. Anyone can beat anybody on his day.

 

With Current form of MD pair from india, i hope they have a chance of getting a point against Indonesia.. And i hope sindhu will give a good fight against lindaweni. Even Anand pawar could give a good fight against indonesia if he is selected(Definitely, india will select him considering kashyap's such a poor form). If these three shows something marvellous tomorrow, definitely, we can move ahead..

 

I agree. Even though Akshay/Pranav performed excellently against the Liu/Qiu, the Indonesian pair will still be good enough for them. I just expect a good fight from Indian MD pair and nothing more. If they win, it will be a great pleasant upset.

Though Linda seems better than Sindhu, the result could be other way around. I am expecting Sindhu's win tomorrow.

Ashwini/Pradnya will give a decent fight to Greysia Polii and partner, but I don't really expect them to win yet. Ashwini / Pradnya will be a good force a year later. They just need some experience. I am really impressed by Pradnya's game.

XD should be a one sided show with Liliyana Natsir and partner being in great form.

I am expecting 50-50 chances in MS, either Anand Pawar or Kashyap plays.


Overall, 4-1 or 3-2 in favor of INA. 0-5, if India performs very poorly.

 

I was expecting Ahsan / Hendra to play MD. But its Pratama / Saputro. Never seen them play before, but I am sure they'd be good. INA seem to be preserving the big ones for China, I guess. This should be an interesting contest.

 

Probably giving Pratama/Saputro the chance to gain some experience against unknown players. The win should also give them a certain boost in confidence.

 

Though India lost in both the encounters with china and indonesia, i have certainly found few good doubles players who are lesser known to everybody.. Akshay and pranav are good as well as WD pair. Infact, pradnya is brilliant compared to Aswini. Yesterday, all the mistakes were done by Aswini and pradnya played excellently. WD pair fought excellently well against Indonesian pair.

Sindhu - Still not yet matured. But she played brilliantly against wang yihan taking one game from her. Every country has 2 or 3 players in this tournament. India has only one an hence the consequences. They should have thought about it .

Upcoming tournament for indian players to participate is Thailand open . Many young players had registered their names . I wish them all the best .

 

[h=1]Interview with Tarun Kona – A rising star of Indian badminton[/h]
http://www.sportskeeda.com/2013/05/24/interview-with-tarun-kona/

EXCERPTS:

Tarun Kona is one of the rising stars of Indian badminton. This young powerful smasher of the shuttlecock has made his mark in both men’s doubles and mixed doubles. Excerpts from a tete-a tete with him:


Q. How tough has the loss against China been in the Sudirman Cup?


Well, the loss against China was disappointing indeed because all the players had worked hard in the build up to the Sudirman Cup. There were quite a few positives from the tie as well. Sindhu played really well against Wang Yihan and almost scored a point for us. Akshay and Pranav had a good chance in the men’s doubles as well.


Q. Why is there such a huge gap between India and China/Indonesia?


I don’t think there is a lot of gap between India and Indonesia/China because if you look at the results lately, Saina and Sindhu have been beating the Chinese players. Even Kashyap won his match against Rumbaka and has beaten Chen Long in the Indonesian open last year. When it comes to women’s doubles, Ashwini and Pradnya have beaten Ma Jin and Tang Jinhua of China in Malaysia in January. In mixed doubles, me and Ashwini have played some close matches against the Indonesian pairs, as well as Korean pairs. So overall if you look at it, it all boils down to who plays well on that particular day. Even against Indonesia, we had our chances as Kashyap had won his match and we had our hopes tied on Sindhu and on the women’s doubles match. Sindhu had beaten her opponent in January, so we were confident. In women’s doubles, we lost two close games. Therefore, I feel we could have pulled it off against Indonesia but we were just unlucky.


Q. What effect did Saina Nehwal’s absence have on the team?


Yeah, it was definitely a blow when we came to know that Saina wasn’t playing because Saina is Saina. The Chinese and all the others fear playing her. So it was quiet a setback for us, but Sindhu played well.


Q. How is Ashwini as a senior partner?


Ashwini has a lot of experience ; she reads the game well, which kind of helps us during the match. She is the one who does the talking during the match as in doubles, one of the partners has to do the talking. She calms me down during tense situations in a match. I need to learn that from her.


Q. Girls are generally slower than boys. Is that frustrating sometimes on court?


In mixed doubles, the girls, in general, are very good at the net and they create openings for the guy to finish. Therefore, role of the girl is very important in mixed doubles. Well, I think Ashwini has one of the hardest smashers in the game, and is fastest mover when compared to other girls, so it’s not frustrating for me at all.


Q. Do you think doubles and mixed doubles deserve more support and attention?


The doubles scene has definitely improved. The Badminton Association of India is sending us for more tournaments and it’s good. Definitely, doubles and mixed doubles should be given more importance as only then the juniors will take up doubles from an early age. In Indonesia and China, all the players focus on doubles from the age of 14 or less, but it’s only in India that all of us start off playing singles and shift to doubles only after our junior category is over, which is at around 19. So, kids should be encouraged to take up doubles at a young age and given the right training from say 14. Even the media needs to cover doubles in a better way. For example, I and Ashwini beat the world number nine in Germany, in March and it wasn’t highlighted at all. Ashwini and Pradnya beat the Chinese world number six in Malaysia. If the coverage improves, the younger lot will be encouraged to take up doubles at an early age. This is what I feel.


Q. Why do you think Indian players haven’t yet made a mark in mixed doubles in the international circuit?


Well I think we are still young (all of us are 24 or less) and have lots to improve on. In the last 3-4 months, the training has changed. Gopi sir and all the other coaches are working hard on us. Gopi sir has changed our training program. It’s more intense and its turning out quite well. We are focusing more on consistency and power and it’s helping us a lot. I am sure, within the next year or so, you will definitely see better results from all the doubles players.


Q. What’s your training schedule like?


We basically train for 5 hours a day. We have on court training from 8:30 to 10:30 in the morning, which is followed by another on court session from 3 to 4:30 pm. Then, we have a gym session from 5 to 6 on Tuesday, Thusrday and Saturday, and on the other two days, apart from the two on court sessions, we have another on court session from 6-7 in the evening. Wednesday evenings are off and so is Sunday.


Q. How often do you practice with Ashwini?


Ashwini comes to Hyderabad whenever the national camps are on and camps are on almost throughout the year. Apart from that, when there’s a break between the camps I go to Bangalore and train with her under Tom sir.


Q. In men’s doubles, what targets have you and Arun set for this year?


Currently, me and Arun are ranked 38 in the world and our aim is to break into the top 25 by the end of this year. As far as mixed doubles is concerned, we are 31 right now and we aim to break into the top 20 by the end of the year.


Q. What are your strengths in the game? If you were to pick out one best quality of both your partners, what will they be?



Well, my strong point is my net game, as in doubles there has to be a play maker who sets up the rally for the partner to finish. As I have a good net game, my role is to see that my partner gets an opening to finish off the rally. I am lucky to have partners who have very hard smashes. Even in our mixed doubles matches, we don’t play the conventional style where the guy is at the back and the girl in front. It’s different for us as; Ashwini has a very hard smash and I am good at the net. So more often than not, she’s at the back and I am at the net. Apart from this, Ashwini has improved her net game a lot and I am working on improving my smashes and back court play. Another thing is that I and Ashwini talk a lot about the game, so we kind of discuss about various pairs, and how they play and all.

 

[h=1]Changing training trends in Indian badminton – Part 1[/h]
http://www.sportskeeda.com/2013/05/28/changing-training-trends-in-indian-badminton-part-1/

EXCERPTS:

Physical training in Indian badminton has remained a grey area for decades, and although the expertise available now is better than it ever was, one wonders if there are aspects to training that the Chinese, for instance, use to great effect, and are unknown outside of that country.

In the early years of Indian badminton, the most obvious deficiency was physical. Players such as TN Seth, Suresh Goel, Nandu Natekar and others were celebrated as artists, but were unable to match the best opponents of their times in the fitness department. Fitness routines consisted of a few rounds of jogging and shadow play; weight training was unheard of even until the early 1970s.


Former Asian champion Dinesh Khanna – easily the fittest Indian player of his generation – remembers how his friend Suresh Goel, a magician on the court, would fool the team coach by wetting his T-shirt with water, to show that he had completed a run although he hadn’t. The first team coach to introduce physical training was Darshan Kumar Tandon, who put the team through a strenuous session before its 1969 Thomas Cup tie against Indonesia. Tandon got the team to do hill and desert runs, and the players got into such good shape that they took two matches off the formidable Indonesian team at Jaipur.


The first player to take weight training seriously was Prakash Padukone. As a young boy, he had watched Rudy Hartono doing a skipping routine at a team hotel in Jabalpur, and the experience transformed Padukone’s attitude to fitness. In 1977, he and Syed Modi trained with the Indonesian team in Jakarta, and that radically changed Padukone’s career. The most important lesson he learnt was in weight training, of which little was known or practised in India.


Badminton is among the most complicated sports in physical training, for the sheer complexity of movements the body goes through. In few other sports do we see the body requiring the range of motion that it does in badminton – for it moves not just on the ground, but also in the air. Explosiveness is perhaps the single most important physical attribute in a player, and to develop it requires a fine understanding of both the body and the loads it can be subjected to.


The first coach to bring extreme methods into Indian badminton was the Chinese coach Zhao Min, who was associated with the Indian team from 1990 to 1994. Zhao introduced a regimen that was so intense, few could survive it. But those who did went on to achieve international success. Pullela Gopi Chand was part of that bunch of players whose career went on the upswing following the intensity of that training.


U Vinod, one of the best doubles players India has produced, remembers that training vividly. “It was very very tough,” he says. “We did extremely heavy weights. It certainly helped me. We would do half-squats of 150 or 160 kilos. I’ve even gone up to 180 kilos on the half-squats, and full-squats of 120 kilos. It was intense training, and your body breaks down. In the initial period, it was totally unacceptable to the body. I had severe body pain and swelling of the joints. It was killing. Many in the team could not take it. But those who did, went on to do well internationally. When you are subjected to such intensity, you actually enjoy playing on court, because it becomes so much easier. You lose fear. It breaks you down physically and emotionally, and then you slowly start accepting it.”


Unfortunately, Zhao Min’s expertise wasn’t used by India, and there was too much local politicking that eventually drove him away. For much of the next decade, Indian badminton groped in the dark. A few individuals, like Gopi, figured out their own path, but the team did not have the resources or the expertise to follow contemporary training methods.


Things have gradually turned around, and there is a lot more local expertise available. Indians who have studied sports science and nutrition abroad have brought in a wealth of knowledge and experience to training methodology. With greater advance in sports science, methods of training – not to mention the critical area of sports nutrition — have changed radically. The methods of Zhao Min might seem almost crude today – but have the Chinese themselves deviated from that path? What exactly is it they do that makes them better than anyone else?