Pullela Gopichand

Pullela Gopichand is an Indian Badminton player. He won the All England Open Badminton Championships in 2001 defeating Chen Hong of China. He became the second Indian to achieve this feat after Prakash Padukone, who won it in 1980. Now, he runs the Gopichand Badminton Academy. He is now a very renowned coach who received the Dronacharya Award and is the main force behind the emergence of Saina Nehwal and Parupalli Kashyap. In 2012, former Indian badminton players Sanjay Sharma and Shachi Sharma published a biography on him entitled “Pullela Gopichand: The World Beneath His Feet.”

He won his first National Badminton Championship title in 1996, and won the title five times in a row, till 2000. He also won two Gold Medals and one Silver Medal at the National Games 1998 held at Imphal. The same year, Gopichand led the State Badminton team of Andhra Pradesh to win the prestigious Rahmatulla Cup. In his International Badminton career, he represented the nation in 3 Thomas Cup tournaments. In 1996 he grabbed a Gold Medal in the SAARC Badminton Tournament held at Vijayawada, and repeated the victory in the same tournament held at Colombo in 1997. At the Commonwealth Games, he won a Silver Medal in the team event and a Bronze Medal in the singles event. He was able to get his first big boost up at International level in 1997 in the Indian Grand Prix Tournament held at Delhi.

The proudest moments of Gopichand’s lifetime arrived in the year 2001, when he recreated the history by winning the prestigious 2001 All England Open Badminton Championships at London. To commemorate his excellent achievements, the Government of India awarded him the Arjuna Award in the year 1999. Further in 2001, he was bestowed upon the highest Indian honour in the field of sports, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award. In the year 2005, he was conferred the Padma Shri Award. He received the Dronacharya Award on 29 August 2009 for his contribution to Indian badminton as a coach.