Pullela Gopichand the coach is a happy man. People have given him all the credit for the Silver medal at RIO. His academy has also received world wide attention. He is always keen to see his trainees achieve better results than what he did as a player.
This is the trait which makes India’s chief national coach and former All England champion, P. Gopi Chand, one of the most respected and successful coaches in India’s sporting history.
And, now Gopi has to his credit producing two Olympic medalists — bronze medallist Saina Nehwal in 2012 and now P.V. Sindhu in Rio ever since he set up his academy in Hyderabad in 2008.
Gopichand does his job and expects others to do theirs. There was a lot of planning which Gopi made before the big medal hopes — K. Srikanth and Sindhu — left for Rio.
The men’s and women’s doubles players trained at his first academy set up in 2008 and the singles players at the new one set up in coordination with the Sports Authority of India.Now the expectations have gone high and Gopi has to produce more Sindhus in future. Saina was trained by Gopi, but she left him recently and is being trained by a different coach now. In fact she is in a Mumbai hospital undergoing treatment for her Knee injury.
