Internet Desk: India’s star shuttler Kidambi Srikanth had received mentor-ship from the former India skipper Rahul Dravid in the run-up to the Tokyo Olympics 2020. The Hyderabad based badminton player has done the nation proud by reaching the finals of three consecutive Badminton Super Series final, winning two of them in Indonesia and Australia. The 24 year old has also won the China Open in 2014 and Indian Open in 2015.
Srikanth is supported under Rahul Dravid Athlete Mentorship programme since 2012 and has been fortunate to get the personal mentorship from GoSports Foundation advisor Rahul Dravid.
Srikanth has been supported by Bangalore based GoSports Foundation who has been actively organising his funds for international travel, camera equipment to improve his match play, equipment, gear, injury management services, personal physiotherapy, a personal fitness trainer working with him at the academy and on tour, nutritional requirements.
Srikanth has already set his targets set. He is eyeing the World Championships at Glasgow in August and most importantly the upcoming Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The Foundation is committed towards giving him excellent support in the coaching system at the Gopichand Academy, and they will parallely ensure that he undergoes regular physical assessments and has the support he needs in the department of physiotherapy, fitness, injury management and a nutritional programme. Also he will receive mentorship from our advisory board members to guide him with mental conditioning to progress to the next level.
Talking about the GoSports Foundation, it is a non-profit venture working towards the development of some of India’s most talented emerging and elite athletes, competing in Olympic and Paralympic disciplines. The foundation has some big names in the field of sports in its advisory board. Olympic gold medalist Abhinav Bindra, former Indian cricket captain Rahul Dravid and All England Badminton Champion Pullela Gopichand are in the Board of Advisors. John Gloster, former physiotherapist of the Indian Men’s National Cricket Team is the Head of Sports Science.
The mission of the Foundation is to Professionalise Indian Sport with a firm belief that sporting champions are created when the right talent gets the right support at the right time.
The Foundation has been working with some of India’s top junior Olympic and Paralympic talent, through our athlete scholarships and knowledge building programmes. It has offered crucial support to more than 200 junior athletes across various sporting disciplines in the last six years, with many of their athletes representing and winning medals for India at the Olympics, Paralympics, Asian and Commonwealth Games.
Some of the athletes who got support as part of their programmes are: Olympic gymnast Dipa Karmakar, shuttler and Olympic quarterfinalist Kidambi Srikanth, Olympic Race Walker Manish Rawat, Olympic Rower Dattu Bhokanal, Olympic Weightlifter Satish Kumar, Olympic 400m track athlete Poovamma MR, two time Paralympic gold medallist Devendra Jhajharia, Paralympic silver medallist Deepa Malik, and Paralympic bronze medallist Varun Bhati.
Lastly the main target of the Foundation is to professionalise sport in India and ensure that Indian athletes have a support structure that takes care of their requirements, so that they only need to focus on playing and excelling at their sport.