MUMBAI: At his peak, Prakash Padukone didn’t get the opportunity to go for gold at the Olympics. Badminton as a sport was introduced at the 1992 Barcelona Games. The former All-England champion hung up is racquet a year earlier and he channelled his energies in grooming talent when the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy was established.
Ask Padukone if he regrets missing out on winning an Olympic medal and his answer is rather matter of fact. “If badminton was part of the Olympics, I would have definitely played… could have won a medal when I was on top of my game,” he said.
Padukone believes that the sport has grown in stature in India, albeit slowly. On Monday, badminton received a shot in the arm.
Padukone was at the Bombay Gymkhana to throw his weight behind the 1st Tata Open All India Badminton Tournament, a Rs 5 lakh five-star event, to be held from July 27 to July 31.
It was also announced that the Tata group would sponsor Padukone’s academies — in Bangalore and Pune — in addition to a third that will be established in Mumbai.
“An Olympic medal can give badminton a much needed boost,” Padukone said on the sidelines of the event.
“It’s a draw of 32 at Beijing, so how Saina Nehwal and Anup Sridhar fare will depend a lot on a favourable draw. A couple of good matches could take them within touching distance of a medal. The best players are going to be at the Olympics, so it won’t be easy for either Saina or Anup but I won’t completely write off their chances of winning a medal,” he added.
Padukone reckoned that Saina’s good form in the run-up to the Games gives her a good chance of making progress in Beijing.
“For Anup, it will be much more difficult as he hasn’t been in the best for form and has nursed a foot injury (during the Swiss Super Series). On Saturday, during training, he sprained his right ankle. Fortunately there is only damage to the tissue and not the bone,” Padukone said elaborating on the challenge the World No.33 faces.
Talking about the next line of players coming through, Padukone said that a strong domestic structure that also attracts foreign players is the need of the hour.
“Including the Tata Open, we now have five tournaments for the seniors. While there are adequate number of tournaments at the junior level, I believe we need more Senior tournaments to make the domestic circuit robust. There should be a balance between training camps and competitive tournaments,” was his observation.
Padukone’s objective is to provide the best infrastructure and coaching. “When I started off it was difficult to find sponsors and training facilities. I had to face some hardships. Now, I want the academy to give the present generation of players everything I did not have. The aim is not to produce players as good as me, but better than me, like Rudy Hartono, the eight-time All-England champion,” he added.
Incidentally, it was at the Bombay Gymkhana that Padukone, then a 15-year-old National junior champion, first played Hartono, who was at the peak of his powers.
“I lost 5-15 3-15, but it helped me realise how far I had to go to become a world class player. I want players of this generation to be exposed to such high quality badminton regularly, he said.
