The Hindu : Sport / Badminton : BAI gives up on the Olympics

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Wednesday, Jun 06, 2007
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BAI gives up on the Olympics

Principal Correspondent

KOCHI: Six years ago, when Gopi Chand won the All England title in Birmingham, the badminton world was shocked. During his dream run, Gopi, then the world No. 10, ended a 30-match winning streak of Denmark's World No. 1 Peter Gade and China's Olympic champion Ji Xinpeng.

"Aim high, aim for the sky," has been Gopi's frequent advice to budding players since that magical Sunday.

But the Badminton Association of India doesn't think so. Its secretary L.C. Gupta, for one, doesn't believe that Indians could work up magic in next year's Beijing Olympics.

"We can't expect anything at the Olympics. We can't do anything there. In fact, that's what we have told the Government and the Sports Ministry also," the BAI secretary told The Hindu here on Tuesday when asked about the association's plans for the Summer Games.

This is despite the fact that the young Saina Nehwal is considered by many as a potential world champion and Chetan Anand, the current National champion, enjoyed a world ranking of 22 midway through last year.

The BAI's focus now, like in most other games, is the 2010 Commonwealth Games. But by then players like Chetan Anand would be nearing their thirties, probably too old to fly, too old to touch the sky.

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