'Victories have not come suddenly': Pullela Gopichand on India's success at CWG 2022

Indian badminton legend and PV Sindhu's coach, Pullela Gopichand, was delighted to see the success the country's contingent had at the Commonwealth Games 2022. India finished fourth in the CWG 2022 medals tally with 61 medals, including 22 gold. Six of the total medals were won by India's badminton contingent.

Interestingly, the badminton contingent ended India's final day on a high by winning three golds. The day began with two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu winning gold in the women's singles before Lakshya Sen followed suit in the men's singles. The day then ended with the sensational men's duo of Chirag Shetty and Satwik Rankireddy winning the gold in the doubles category.

Pullela Gopichand explains work done to achieve success

While speaking exclusively to Republic, Pullela Gopichand began by giving an overview of India's performance at the Commonwealth Games 2022.

"I think overall Indian sport has looked good over the past few years," said Gopichand. "Credit has to be given to the government for the policies and the way they have worked. I think overall today parents are willing to put their kids in sports and kids are looking at sports as a career."

He went on to add, "And most importantly our sportspersons have believed in themselves and delivered. I think this is not a victory that has come suddenly. I think this has been built up over the last 10 years or so which is why we are getting the results that we are getting."

When asked about the biggest takeaway from India's performances at CWG 2022, Gopichand replied, "I think Indian badminton is looking at conquering great heights. And I think the performance in all of these events, we have got some fantastic medals. We have a great talent pool coming up and hopefully with the right kind of structure we can produce more results. What it eventually shows is that we have talent and that we need to groom them up."

Pullela ended his remarks by stating that the focus should also be on the younger generation of players getting the right kind of support so that they can eventually turn out to be champions. He believes that improving the younger players would improve India's bench strength and also ensure that they can deliver results consistently in the future.