Bravo sindhu may she inspire a legion

Bravo sindhu may she inspire a legion

In a country starved for role models and world champions, Sunday brought us a gift: Pusarla Venkata Sindhu became the first Indian woman to become badminton world champion. At the pinnacle of every global game, pressure is unbelievably high, and after relative minnows are eliminated, there is little to differentiate between the last few standing. Sindhu had wilted earlier, earning her the sobriquet, ‘choker’. In Basel this weekend, she shamed critics and blew away her fearsome opponent, Japan’s Nozumi Okuhara, defending world champion. Sindhu has surpassed the feat of compatriot Saina Nehwal, former number one, yet to win the world championship.

If Sunday is a portent, we have not just seen the emergence of a new champion, but a new approach to the game. Women’s badminton has been a display of exquisite skill, wrist turns, drop shots and exhausting rallies that spectators love, but drain contestants physically. Not any more: Sindhu took barely 36 minutes to demolish her opponent, with a fierce display of power-badminton, swooping and smashing her way to a 21-7, 21-7 victory. This could be badminton’s Boris Becker moment, when the mixture of skill and power of the Borg-McEnroe generation was blown away by Baron Von Slam.

In mainstream individual sports, India now has seven world champions: boxer Mary Kom, lifter Mirabai Chanu, speed-chess king Vishwanathan Anand, junior shooters Anish Bhanwala and Yashaswini Singh, green-velvet king Pankaj Advani and Neeraj Chopra, junior champion of the javelin. Sprinter Hima Das, a former junior world champion, and gymnast Dipa Karmakar could emerge world beaters. Institutions and attitudes must shape up to create a structure that nurtures and rewards sporting ability into winning excellence.