Camp shut, Sindhu to continue training

NEW DELHI : World champion PV Sindhu plans to shift on-court training to another academy in Hyderabad for at least a week after the national badminton camp was shut on Thursday due to positive Covid-19 tests of a player and physio, her father said on Friday.

Sindhu, aiming to go one better than her 2016 Rio Olympics silver, wants to train at the Suchitra Academy where she goes for fitness workouts, while officials decide when to reopen the Gopichand Academy.

The official training base was shut for sanitisation on Thursday after doubles specialist N Sikki Reddy and physio C Kiran tested positive. The others at the camp had tested negative on Wednesday. “For at least the next one week, we’ll not go to Gopichand academy. Today it is a running session, tomorrow weight training and Sunday rest. From Monday,

100 % Sindhu will have fitness sessions alone at Suchitra Academy under trainer Srikanth Verma,” her father PV Ramana said from Hyderabad.

Sindhu will request Badminton Association of India (BAI) and Sports Authority of India to shift her on-court sessions also to where she is doing fitness routines, under India’s Korean coach Park Tae-sang. “Gopi being the national coach cannot focus on Sindhu alone, we’ll request to have Sindhu’s sessions with Park at Suchitra,” Ramana, a former India volleyball player, said.

Olympic probables Reddy, Sindhu, B Sai Praneeth, Saina Nehwal, K Srikanth, Ashwini Ponnappa, Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy were selected to start training on August 7 after the govt opened stadiums and academies. Sindhu, former men’s world No 1 Srikanth, world championships bronze medallist Sai Praneeth and Reddy were training at the Gopichand academy.