Pullela Gopichand feels Indian badminton has a long way to go to compete with China

What’s the story?

Chief national coach Pullela Gopichand recently said in an interview that India was still far away from being a dominant force like China and suggested that an overhaul of domestic structure and administration would be needed to turn India into a badminton superpower.

"I think we are still far away from China. I don't think it is a fair comparison. We have done well but I would want them to do well in World Championships, Olympics and All England, playing consistently and only then we can say those things," Gopichand said.

"What we need to do is, when every country does well, it has its athletics going up and together they should also have the coaches and support staff going up, and also government structure and policy going up.

"Here, by just our sheer push of energy we have our players going up there but our coaches, support staff, managers they are not of the same level," said 2001 All England champion.

In case you didn’t know...

Gopichand took over the reins of Indian badminton in 2006 and has since produced two Olympic medallists in Saina Nehwal (bronze in London Olympics 2012) and PV Sindhu (silver in Rio Olympics 2016).

This year, PV Sindhu won the India Open while Praneeth lay claim to his maiden Super Series title at Singapore before Srikanth won back-to-back titles at Indonesia and Australia in the last two weeks.

Srikanth had also finished as runners-up in the final of the Singapore Open in April. He also became the sixth player in the world and the first Indian male badminton player to play in three straight Super Series finals after his winning run at the Australian Open.

The heart of the matter

Gopichand, in the interview, was also critical of the level of domestic tournaments claiming that the domestic structure built in 1991 was not world class and that for the last 25 years the domestic structure, the nationals and the thinking had remained the same.

He also said that the coaches were not world class level and were more suited for the state level.

Gopichand also talked about how the Indian Badminton structure was not sustainable, while a lot of support had been received from the government and the sports authority of India, there hadn't been enough organisational growth.

The 43-year old said that there wasn’t enough planning and restructuring and the thinking within the system still wasn’t world class. He called on the government and concerned sports authorities to address those issues.

What’s next?

Gopichand has already set his sights on getting the players ready for the World Championships to be held in Glasgow from August 21-27.

Authors take

The Padma Shri awardee and chief national coach of the Indian badminton team has been responsible for ending China’s dominance in the sport, and is regarded as the chief architect of the sudden rise of Indian badminton.