Rio Olympics silver medallist P.V. Sindhu and her coach Pullela Gopichand were on Tuesday felicitated by the Maharashtra Badminton Association (MBA) at a special ceremony here.
The ceremony was attended by Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis along with state Sports Minister Vinod Tawde, who presented the shuttler with a cheque of Rs. 75 lakh and Rs. 25 lakh for Gopichand.
Sindhu, a two-time World Championship bronze medallist is the first Indian shuttler to bag a historic silver after the Hyderabadi went down to Spain's World No.1 Carolina Marin in the summit clash of the women's singles category in Rio de Janeiro.
Addressing the function, MBA President Arun Lakhani said: "We have extremely talented players, we have great badminton minds/coaches, what we need is strong support on infrastructure which fortunately is also there. We need to connect these dots and come together for the sport, and I can assure you that within two years we can see a fresh new beginning for the players blossoming out of these facilities."
"I have recently taken up the responsibility to lead MBA and am trying to focus on infrastructure development and use of technology and increasing communication/interaction with all stakeholders. We recently launched player friendly software for tournament & calendar planning. We already have over 4000 players registered and we expect it to go to 10,000 by year end," Lakhani added.
--IANS
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