The badminton contingent for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games will be having a nine-member team consisting of three coaches and two physios alongside four qualified shuttlers.
Earlier the Badminton Association of India (BAI) had proposed a 7-member coaching and support staff to be sent along with the players. However, with the strict Covid-19 protocols and an allotted quota of 33 per cent of support staff alone for the number of qualified players, only a 5-member team of coaches and support staff have been allotted to travel with the badminton contingent.While each of the qualified players had their individual team of trainers and physios as part of their preparations, the approved contingent list comprise of singles coach Park Tae-Sang and Agus Dwi Santosa along with doubles coach Mathias Boe and physios Evangline Baddam and Sumansh Sivalanka to accompanying the Indian players, PV Sindhu, B Sai Praneeth and men's doubles duo of Chirag Shetty and Satwik Rankireddy.
"With just one quota available Gopichand decided to opt-out in order to ensure Agus Dwi Santosa could be accommodated who has been training with Sai [Praneeth] since the pandemic", said BAI General Secretary Ajay Singhania in an official release. With Saina Nehwal and Sindhu winning Olympics medals in 2012 and 2016 consecutively, the Indian team will look to complete a hat-trick of medals at the upcoming Tokyo Olympics.
The Tokyo Olympics would be held from July 23 to August 8. The event was slated to be held last year, but it had to be postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
( With inputs from ANI )
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