India send record 7-member badminton contingent to Olympics
Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu lead the Indian badminton team to the Rio games, which also includes K.Srikanth and two doubles pairs. The seven-member strong team will be the biggest badminton contingent India have ever sent to the Olympics since badminton was introduced in 1992 at Barcelona.
This will also be the first time India will have two representatives in the women's draw, with Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu both hopeful of strong performances in Rio.
The qualification is based on the BWF rankings which will be released on May 5. Kidambi Srikanth will be the only Indian representative in the men's singles, despite his poor performances in recent times, after Parupalli Kashyap's hopes of qualification were blown away by a string of injuries.
Pullela Gopichand, India's coach, has expressed his delight on this achievement. He told TOI, "It is big achievement for us, a result of our consistent performances. I am quite happy... In fact, eight shuttlers could have qualified but Kashyap suffered an injury at the wrong time."
Despite Indian shuttlers' poor performances in the last couple of months, Gopichand is hopeful of more medals from this team. "The poor performances are because some of them have fitness issues. But they continued to play as they had to qualify for Rio. Now that the qualification process is over, we will get around eight weeks to train. It will be enough for them. I am expecting more medals this time," Gopichand explained.
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