In pursuit of excellence, there are little pleasures of life that need to be sacrificed and from Saina Nehwal to Sindhu, Gopi’s theory has never changed.
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Sindhu, the two-time World championship bronze medallist, became the first Indian woman player to win a Silver in the Olympics and fifth woman player from India to win a medal in Olympics.
In fact, I started the early morning training schedules at 4.30 just for her and the silver is a result of seven long years of planning. Google searches last week peaked the highest during her battle in the finals on 13th August as fans continued to cheer.
The Rohtak village, which can not stop celebrating her bronze right now, had once questioned and even criticised her parents for letting their daughter pick sport as a career.
She wasn’t among the medal contenders who were hyped before the Games and had seen one of her more fancied teammates – Vinesh Phogat – stretchered off the mat with a grievous knee injury minutes before her bouts.
Gopi hailed Sindhu’s work ethic during the lead upto the Olympics. She’s doing a great job.
The sacrifices extended to her parents as well.
Giving credit of her success to coach Pullela Gopichand, Sindhu said: “I’ve really worked hard before coming. I’m very truly very happy”.
@Abhinav_Bindra: I think I’m more heartbroken today than I was a week ago!
There are a lot of mental aspects that Carolina Marin had an upper hand at, which helped her pull off the fixture.
It was a good match, I can tell you. We are proud to have Sindhu as our fellow citizen. “I missed the gold”.
The umpire intervenes if either of the players disagrees, and he or she gives out a decision after checking the condition of the shuttle.
While Sindhu would be deserving of the accolades and the prizes that follow, as a nation we might do well to remember that to honour sportspeople is to recognise the fruition of their dedicated efforts, but the hyping up of expectations and pressuring sportspeople to perform may be counterproductive. I made simple errors and she won the match.
Bachchan in his message for Sindhu said she played her heart out and made her country proud.
India gets its second medal. “To generate that kind of energy going requires something special”.
Holding Nerves: Carolina Marin was very casual at her approach in the first set when the score went from 16-19 to 19-19 in her opponent’s favor.
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Sindhu is thus standing on the cusp of history for women’s sports in the country when she takes on the formidable Spanish girl Marin this morning (6:55pm in India). I am certainly looking forward to doing all this, once I reach home.
