High-flying badminton squad fails to justify year-round govt expenditure

India’s Chirag Shetty (left) and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy during their quarter-final against Malaysia in Paris this month. Pic/Getty Images

India became so used to a badminton medal from the Olympics in the last 12 years that Paris 2024 seems nothing short of a disaster.

Lakshya Sen emerged as a notable bright spot with a fourth-place finish, but the Indian badminton team, including medal contenders such as PV Sindhu and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, returned empty-handed from the Olympics for the first time in over a decade.

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India's PV Sindhu during her loss to China's He Bing Jiao in Paris recently. Pic/Getty Images

The hopes of a medal were not misplaced, Sindhu was there again eyeing a hat-trick of medals, the ever-tenacious HS Prannoy (men's singles) had finally made it to his debut Olympics, and Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto (women's doubles) seemed in decent form.

As for Lakshya and Satwik-Chirag, they were seen as potential podium finishers even before the first match was held.

During the Paris cycle, badminton received considerable support too, including 13 national camps and 81 foreign exposure trips, funded under the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS).

The Sports Authority of India's (SAI) Mission Olympic Cell allocated R72.03 crore, the second-largest funding among the nearly R470 crore spent on India's Olympic preparations across 16 disciplines.

Despite the significant investment, the results in Paris fell short of expectations, highlighting the unpredictable nature of Olympic competition and also the mental aspect of playing at such an event.

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