Did you know badminton was invented in India? It was the British soldiers who devised the game based on some ancient games such as shuttlecock and battledore in India during the middle of the 19th century. There are many reasons why we Indians have reason to celebrate the sport currently. Here are a few of those.
Lakshya Sen from Almora in Uttarakhand recently reached the coveted No 1 spot in the junior badminton world rankings issued by the Badminton World Federation.
He has had an outstanding year in the badminton circuit last year; having won titles such as the All India Senior Ranking Badminton Tournament at Itanagar, Senior India International Series Badminton Tournament and so on. He trains at the Prakash Padukone Academy in Bangalore; receiving personal day to day attention from the legend himself.
India has produced badminton legends such as Prakash Padukone and Pullela Gopichand who have won some of the top tournaments of the world including the very prestigious All England Open.
When Saina Nehwal won the bronze medal at the 2012 Olympics, she was the first Indian to win a badminton medal at the games. Then at the next Olympics, P V Sindhu delighted an entire country by winning a silver medal at Rio in 2016. The two stars are consistently within the top ten world badminton ranking lists.
Several Indian players such as Srikanth Kidambi, Ajay Jayaram, Prannoy Kumar, Sameer Verma and others are in the top 50 and women such as Tanvi Lad, Gadde Ruthvika Shivani and several others show great promise too.
There are some excellent coaching facilities available in the country, thanks to the badminton academies run by Prakash Padukone, Pullela Gopichand and many others. The dedication that these former players have had for promoting the game in India has yielded real results.
Besides these academies, it helps that badminton is a very popular game in India. In fact it is the most commonly played game after cricket and talent can therefore be spotted quite easily. Looks like there are good days ahead for Indian badminton.
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