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Friday, April 19, 2024
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Pullela Gopi Chand is the brightest star to emerge on the Indian badminton scene in a long time, after Prakash Padukone He was born on November 16th 1973, in Nagandla in Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh, India to parents Pullela Subhash Chandra Bose and Subbaravamma who were both interested in sports. Gopichand is indeed a story of sheer hard work, dedication and pure determination for the game of Badminton. Though Gopichand nicknamed Gops, favoured cricket earlier, his elder brother made him switchover to Badminton. Gopi's skill at Badminton was the talk at St.Pauls where he had his schooling, when he was hardly around 10 years old. |
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He suffered a setback in 1986, when he suffered a multiple ligament rupture. But this young fighter came back to the field with sheer determination and reached the finals of Andhra Pradesh State Junior Badminton ship in 1987, even though he lost the title to his elder brother Rajashekar. By the time he passed out of school in 1988, he had already made a mark in the Badminton field. He did his graduation in Economics from AV College, Hyderabad. In 1989 he won his first single title at the National Championship at Goa and then went on to win the doubles championship also. By 1999, Gopichand achieved a world ranking of 26 winning the Indian international, Scottish, Toulouse, French championships etc. He received the SAARC gold medal the same year. Always a fighter, he refused to be crushed by his defeat in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and true to his recognition out played the Olympics champions to reach the finals of the All England Badminton ship, finally arriving at the forefront of international badminton. He defeated Olympic Gold medallist Anders Boeson in the Quarterfinals of this tournament. In the Semifinals he defeated world No.1 ceded player Peter Gade of Denmark, and in the finals he defeated Chen Hong of China. He achieved his career best world ranking of 5 in April 2001. Contact address: |
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