New Badminton Season, same old challanges Niraj Prabhu/ The Goan, 18 May 2013
The Goa Badminton Association is gearing up for 2013-14 season. After the last couple of seasons where Goa has shown a glimpse of progress at the national level, the GBA is looking to build on this development by promoting the sport in every taluka through schools. The association is also determined to draw corporate support to talented young state players. The state ranking season begins next month and over the course of the season, which runs up till December, the GBA will conduct eight ranking tournaments. Only registered players are allowed to participate in the major ranking tournaments. One of the major attractions of this season will be the team championship battle in the Pro-Badminton League. This is the tournament that pits corporate-backed teams in the state championship. "We could not have this tournament last season as we had scheduling problem. However, we plan to have the third edition of Pro-Badminton League around December. Moreover, we plan to bring some outstation shuttlers to play in the pro-league alongside the cream of badminton players from Goa," revealed GBA vice-president, Sandeep Heble. Goa has seen the rise of Anura Prabhudesai and Anushka Kuvelkar over the last two seasons. Anura, who has made it to five semi-finals and won bronze-medal at the national level, is now taking lessons at the prestigious Prakash Padukone badminton academy. Anushka is also training in another academy. Overall, such dedication and application from the players and their parents, shows a refreshing attitude in the Goan badminton scenario. "The youngsters must be enrolled into specialised academies to improve their overall game. This is the right way to go," says Heble, who believes that the corporates must come forward to take care of such players on per-season basis. Goa sports around 250 registered players every state ranking season out of which around 20 can be bracketed as the cream of badminton in the state. "We need to increase the pool of players and to do that, GBA has decided to approach as many schools as possible to attract students to badminton at a young age. Our executive committee is geared up to go to every taluka to do the needful," says Heble. Apart from the cities where badminton is popular because of fine infrastructure, there are many places in the state where outdoor badminton is quite a crowd-puller. "We also want to bring in such players to the indoor facilities and unearth hidden talents. With a bit of technical adjustments, outdoor players can be good enough to play for the state," feels Heble. Asked about the coaching network in the state, Heble says: "There are enough coaches for the preliminary level but there is a crunch at the advanced level. Here the Sports Authority of Goa should help us out by conducting refresher courses for coaches, to equip them for advanced coaching." With the first ranking tournament of the 2013-14 to be held from June 13-16, top state players like Anura, Anushka, Tejan Falary will be raring to go. And equally charged up, will be the GBA to achieve their target of widening its player base and convincing the corporate sector to back the top players. Source: http://www.thegoan.net/Sports/News/New-badminton-season-same-old-challenges/04295.html
