Sindhu: Life is more important than sport
BADMINTON STAR RUES OLYMPIC QUALIFIERS CANCELLATION
INDIAN superstar PV Sindhu is confident that a lack of tournaments will not hinder her chances of Olympic glory as she trusts her Korean coach Park Tae Sang to create match situations for her in practice.
Owing to the raging Covid-19 pandemic, the Badminton World Federation (BWF) has been forced to cancel the remaining three Olympic qualifiers in India, Malaysia and Singapore. These were to be the last events before the Tokyo Games in July-August.
Asked if the cancellations would affect her preparations, Sindhu said: “Well, we were thinking that Singapore will be the last event before the Olympics but now we don’t have another option. So I am playing matches against different players and my coach Park is trying to create match situations for me in training.
“Different players have different styles of play like Tai Tzu (Ying) or Ratchanok (Intanon, but Park is there to guide me, to prepare me for it,” Sindhu told reporters. “Obviously, we will be playing each other after a few months and there will be something new in our games, so I will have to prepare for that.”
Sindhu does not train with the rest of the Indian Olympic-bound team. She has been training at the Gachibowli indoor stadium in Telangana and does her fitness training at Suchitra academy.
The 25-year-old endorsed the BWF’s decision to cancel the events, saying while it was sad the tournaments could not take place, life was more important than sports.
“It is sad that the whole world has come to a standstill but before sportspersons, we are human beings and life comes first,” Sindhu said.
“If tournaments happen, we don’t know if we will be safe, we might think we will be, but we can’t be sure because we don’t know from where this virus will come.
“For the moment, events are being cancelled and I know sportspersons are sad but I think it is good for the people... Organisers take a lot of measures to keep us in a bubble but still we need to be careful.”
Sindhu, the reigning world champion, said it would be a tough task for organisers and athletes to adhere to Covid-19 protocols in a showpiece event like the Olympic Games, but everyone involved had to brace for the challenge.
“Every country has their own Covid-19 rules. In Thailand, we were tested every two-three days, at the All-England, an entire contingent had to pull out due to one case in their flight, but we have to deal with it,” the Hyderabad shuttler said.
“Even in the Olympics, I have heard that every day they will be testing us. Before we take off, we have to clear an RT-PCR test and after arriving we do a test again. It is definitely a tough task,” she added.