Badminton: Foreign coaches to help out Gopichand- Details here
This year is going to be massive for Indian badminton, as the focus has already shifted to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo and its preparations are on full swing. To ease out the pressure on national coach Pullela Gopichand, several foreign coaches are set to be hired. The foreign coaches will be arriving in Hyderabad by next month. Here are the details.
According to a report, the coaches set to work with Indian players include, Indonesia's Flandy Limpele (Athens Olympics bronze medalist, doubles player), South Korea's Kim Ji Hyun (Olympian, former junior girls singles champion and Asian Games gold medalist) and Park Tae Sang (Olympian). A report in Scroll added, apart from Hyun, other coaches will be contracted by Badminton Association of India (BAI).
The reason behind BAI getting the task, ahead of Sports Authority of India, is because under the latter, the process may take time. Earlier, some coaches ended up signing a contract elsewhere while they were made to wait. BAI doesn't want to repeat this mistake.
Kim and Park, who were earlier an integral part of the South Korean set-up, will be coaching the singles players. Limpele will be assisting Kim Tan Her in the doubles segment. Kim is set to be the first foreign woman to coach Indian shuttlers. Previously, she had played a crucial role in the rise of star Korean shuttler Sung Ji Hyun.
The year is an important one, given the qualifications for Olympics 2020 are scheduled to take place. 2018 saw several Indian shuttlers make a name for themselves at the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games. However, few were able to win BWF tour titles. Sindhu managed to win the BWF World Tour Finals, whereas, 2019 has seen Saina Nehwal winning the Indonesia Masters.
