Sindhu fought like a gladiator but to win gold, the sporting culture must have a mindset shift
We have had two colours at the World Badminton Championships this year. It could have been gold and silver rather than the silver and bronze that we finally brought home, both our top badminton girls losing to the same opponent. There’s a lesson to be learnt here from Nozomi Okuhara, the Japanese pocket powerhouse who walked away with gold, her maiden one and her nation’s first in 40 long years. She did not falter at the final frontier, despite trailing. She did not lose the plot and engaged a sagging PV Sindhu in energy, breaking long rallies and finally snatched a victory away from her opponent not by dint of merit but by just refusing to give up. India is doing brilliant in badminton with both its men and women getting trophies from across the world. But gold is still a benchmark not reached. This makes one wonder, whyIJ Individual sports are very high performance trades and, hence, high energy games too. Sindhu could not withstand the one-hour-50-minute drainer of a cut-throat, touch and go battle she fought till she virtually doubled up. Call it genes, but despite Gopichand’s strictly muscle-building diets that are so famous now, there is something to be said of the weak gene we Asians carry. Sindhu was a victim of that on that glorious night when she gave her all and yet returned without what could have been India’s crowning glory.
Consequently, the nation has to wait for another or more years, and that despite the gladiatorial fight that Sindhu gave Okuhara in the Glasgow final. She had the match in her grasp at 19-17 (third game) but faltered after a superb return from a first game loss. That also tells you something about the killing instinct being somewhat passive and the steel in the nerves yet to solidify, not just in Badminton but in most gaming arenas, sometimes even stretching into cricket. Unfortunately, sport is still a neglected area in our vision and mission. Whatever good is happening in Badminton is due to individual efforts of Gopichand. The mess in federations across the sporting regimes continues to confound not just India’s performances at world forums but also the players themselves. Though the Chinese brigade which held the sport to ransom for very many years has fallen by the wayside, the regimentation that has given it perennial stars like lin Dan needs to be studied and followed by the sporting administrators of India. Payers in China are chosen virtually at birth and trained in their respective sport till they acquire the age to enroll in global championships. It is a rigorous, single-focus physical and mental training they are put through in residential institutes run by the Government, away from the players’ families. It is a difficult regime but it is the only way results have been on the gold pedestal for more than a decade now. Sindhu is a star but in need of an energy boost and a gold standard that will come only after the sporting culture undergoes a change.