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Paris Olympics will be challenging, need to be smarter, says India's star shuttler PV Sindhu

Paris Olympics will be challenging, need to be smarter, says India's star shuttler PV Sindhu

PV Sindhu

PV Sindhu is gearing up for the Paris Olympics 2024. While the mega event is still some months away, the Indian star shuttler is well aware of the challenges awaiting her in the showpiece event. She admits it won't be easy to replicate her past success in the Olympics. Sindhu is a two-time Olympic medallist (silver in Rio, and bronze in Tokyo) and alsothe first Indian woman withsuccessive individual Olympic medals.

In the last 18 months, Sindhu has not had the best of times. She has endured a lean patch, with a dip in form and injury setbacks. Thus, while interacting with PTI, Sindhu spoke at length about the Olympics and said, "I would say, this Olympics is going to be a different experience because the 2016 and 2020 Olympics were very different. Paris will be more challenging but at the same time, I have much more experience and I will have to be much smarter this time."

She opined,''In women's circuit, players in the top 10-15 are tough. It is important to be focused and have a strategy so that you can switch to plan B if plan A doesn't work. It is important to stay calm as sometimes you can go blank. It is important to have a strong mindset."

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After a series of low results, Sindhu parted ways with Korean coach Park Tae-sang in early 2023. She trained with Sports Authority of India's (SAI) Vidhi Chaudhary and with Malaysia's former All-England champion Muhammad Hafiz Hashim, in July, but the ordinary results continued.Just then,former All England Champion Prakash Padukone reached out to her and the shuttler did not waste time in changing her base to Bengaluru.

Currently, she istraining under Indonesia's Agus Santoso at Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy (PPBA). Shedding light on her new trainer and the road ahead, the 28-year-old said, ''I have a new trainer, physio, nutritionist, coach, and mentor, so everything is very new, and I am happy how they have been supporting me and are helping me from where I am and where I should be in the next couple of months."

''I am very fortunate to work with Prakash sir because he is such a legend and him being a mentor helps. His training methods and ideas are helping me. As for Agus, I knew him for a long time when he was training our men's players. We will have to see how I do, it has been just a month. So things will be good moving forward. I am back to my full fitness and I am looking forward to Asia team championships," she highlighted.

Sindhu, the current world number 11, willreturn to action at the Badminton Asia Team Championships in Malaysia, which gets underway onFeb 13. She will look to start afresh and regain her mojo as Paris 2024 nears.