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Peek into the Gopichand champ factory
NEW DELHI: The city of Nizams was busy counting sheep. But chief national coach Pullela Gopichand was already in his lair. On the other side of a large glass pane
NEW DELHI: The city of Nizams was busy counting sheep. But chief national coach Pullela Gopichand was already in his lair. On the other side of a large glass pane separating a hall that houses eight badminton courts with an office, a lean, muscular man in black shorts and a colourful jacket stood on a wooden box unleashing quick-fire missiles of shuttlecocks across the net. Holding ten shuttles in one hand and throwing them down furiously at three students, Gopichand, the last Indian player to win the coveted All England Club Title in 2001, was busy ensuring his trainees covered every inch of the court.
Gopichand’s fondness of starting practice early is known. For years, it was in the 4.30 am shift that Olympic finalist PV Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth and Parupalli Kashyap trained before the then celebrated players, stars such as Saina Nehwal, arrived for the 6 am shift. “He is on courts at 4.15 am. And he stays till the last student has returned in the evening,” Kashyap told this correspondent when he visited the academy.
Sindhu, who lost to Spain’s Carolina Marin in the final to win silver, and Srikanth, who beat Jan Jorgensen of Denmark in the round of 16, are just two of his illustrious wards on a conveyor belt of champions that Gopichand’s Academy in Hyderabad’s bustling Gachibawli neighbourhood, has produced. Before Sindhu, of course, Gopichand’s most famous protégé was Saina Nehwal, till they famously parted ways before the London 2012 Olympics.
For Sindhu, getting on the road to success meant passing through Hyderabad’s numerous flyovers. “I used to travel 30 km to come and play here. Dropping me to morning practice and then to school and then again for evening practice was my father’s routine for more than four years before we shifted from Secunderabad,” the tall champion had told this reporter after a gruelling morning workout.
It is Gopichand’s reputation of producing future champions which made KVS Krishna, a farmer in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district and his homemaker wife Radha to send their sons to Hyderabad to train with Gopichand. Of the two, they didn’t expect Srikanth their younger son, to outshine his brother Nanda Gopal and become the top ranked Indian men’s badminton player in the world.
Srikanth’s story is the stuff sporting dreams are made of. In 2015, the then 22-year-old champion dropped unconscious in the academy washroom following a meningitis attack. “I was in the ICU for a week. It is to my coach’s credit that he displayed confidence to pick me for tournaments such as the Asian Games. I then won the China Open in November 2014,” said Srikanth.
Gopi Sir’s students were the first to slay the demons in Indian players’ minds about the Chinese being invincible. But there’s a method behind Gopichand’s success. Students don’t venture out in the evenings since they have to be up by 4 am for practice. They have no Internet access and are allowed mobile phone calls only on Sundays. Common areas of the academy – apart from the 16 rooms and three dormitories – are under CCTV surveillance.
“Discipline and regimentation are important for sport or excellence. Unfortunately, there cannot be easy-going methods. You need to train hard, be tough on yourself and you need to do it day in and day out,” says Gopichand
