Weekend

Today being the weekend, and my hatke topic is about a sport person, who brought the glory to the country and he was the first Indian to become world no. 1 singles player in Badminton. He is none other than Prakash Padukone.

Prakash was born in 1955 in Bangalore. His father Ramesh Padukone initiated him into the game of badminton at very young age, as he was secretary of Mysore Badminton Association for many years.

Padukone’s first official tournament was the Karnataka state junior championship in 1962. Though he lost in the first round, two years later he won the state junior title. He changed his playing style into a more aggressive style in 1971, and won the Indian national junior title in 1972. He also won the senior title the same year. He won the national title consecutively till 1979, a record. In 1978, he won his first major International, Commonwealth games Gold Medal in singles, at Edmonton, Canada. In 1979,  he won  the “Evening of Champions” at the Royal Albert Hall, London.

In 1980, he won the Danish Open and the Swedish Open, and became the first Indian to win the men’s singles title at the All England Championship, with a victory over Indonesian rival Liem Swie King.

Padukone won the first Alba World Cup in October 1981 at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and the first Indian open prize-money tournament, the Indian Masters (now the India Open), at Pune in November. In 1982 he won the Dutch Open and the Hong Kong Open, and at the 1983 world championships, Padukone won the bronze medal in men’s badminton.

Such was his play that during the period 1979 to 1981, he was the force to reckon in the Badminton circuit, during this period he was at the peak of his career.

In 1981 he got married to Ujjwala, a match arranged by his parents.

In 1989, he retired from the competitive badminton circuit, and in 1994, along with fellow national champion Vimal Kumar he founded the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy in Banglore. Its alumini include national champions such as P Gopichand and Aparna Popat.

During his career he could not win many tournaments, as during those days there were not many tournaments at international circuit,his major wins are listed below:

In 1974 Asian games at Tehran, he was part of the team, which won Bronze medal

In 1978 Commonwealth Games at Edmonton- won Gold medal in Men’s Singles.

In 1979, winner of Evening of Champions at London.

In 1980 winner of all England Championship (Men’s Singles) at London.

In 1980, he also won Danish Open & Sweedish Open in Men’s singles.

In 1981 Badminton World Cup at Kuala Lumpur-won Gold medal in Men’s Singles.

In 1981- he was the first winner ( Men’s singles) of the Indian Open.

In 1982, he won Dutch Open & Hong Kong Open in Men’s singles.

In 1983 Badminton world Championship-won bronze medal in Men’s Singles.

In 1986 Asian  Games at Seoul, he was part of the team which won Bronze medal.

During his playing days Badminton was not included in the Olympics, otherwise he would have definitely won the medal there also.

He  was awarded the Arjuna award in 1972 and Padma Shri in 1982  by the Govt. of India.

During his playing days , he was the coolest player and no one ever saw him  losing his temper or getting into argument with referee or line persons. during those day coolest person in Tennis was Bjorn Borg and in Badminton Prakash Padukone.

He is one of the co-founders along with Geet Sethi, of Olympic Gold Quest, a foundation dedicated to the promotion of Olympic sports in India.

Present day generation, is knowing him as a father of Bollywood Heroine Deepika Padukone. The present generation is not aware about his exploits in the field of badminton.

So friends, how do you find this blog of mine,waiting for your views/feed backs/comments.