Pullela Gopichand to Open Badminton Academy in Noida by October

New Delhi: Pullela Gopichand, the Chief National Coach for the Indian badminton team, has announced to open a badminton academy at Shaheed Vijay Singh Pathik Sports Complex in Greater Noida.  Reports are that the initiative is first of its kind by Gopichand in North India. The academy will start badminton training by October this year.

Gopichand, who is a Dronacharya award winner, in this context, has said that the badminton academy will be incorporated with world class facilities and will work forward to ‘to nurture the talent of the region as well as broad-base the interest in the game.’

The academy will be constructed on a 30,000 square feet area and will have eight courts. An indoor academy will be constructed in the academy with a seating capacity of 4,300 audiences. The Gopichand Academy will be managed by Sportzlive, a sports management and marketing academy, which manages other academies of the player across the country too.

Reports are that the badminton academy in Noida will have about 25 students in each group, aged between 8 and 15 years of old. Also, students from the surrounding and other parts of Uttar Pradesh will have first preference to get admission in the centre. Plus, the training academy will have a foreign coach and a group of Indian coaches ‘to nurture the system.’

“We are very excited since this is my first academy in this part of the country and we look forward to promote the badminton culture here. This academy will be modeled on the excellence centre we have built in Hyderabad and over the next few years we expect talented players to emerge out of here too,” said Gopichand when asked about his reply about the badminton academy.