Gopichand to launch Badminton Academy in Greater Noida

India's chief badminton coach Pullela Gopichand is setting up a world class Badminton Academy at Shaheed Vijay Singh Pathik Sports Complex in Greater Noida.

This will be the first such academy by Gopichand in North India. This academy is going to be housed in the Shaheed Vijay Singh Pathik Sports Complex, a world class intergraded sports complex created by the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority, with an investment of over Rs. 130 crores towards the development of the sports complex.

The complex is set up in approximately 40 acres and it has a world class Cricket stadium which is also the home ground for the Afghanistan National Cricket Team, a football ground and a 400m athletics track, an Olympic size swimming pool, synthetic tennis courts, a skating rink, volleyball and basketball courts and a state of the art multipurpose indoor sports stadium.

Speaking on the occasion, Badminton and Dronacharya award winner Gopichand said,"We are very excited since this is my first academy in this part of the country and we look forward to promote the badminton culture here. This academy will be modelled on the excellence centre we have built in Hyderabad and over the next few years we expect talented players to emerge out of here too."

The Gopichand academy, managed by Sportzlive a leading Sports Management/ marketing company, intends to become a centre of excellence to nurture the talent of the region as well as broadbase the interest in the game in this region. The academy has an area of about 30,000 square feet and will have about 8 courts. The indoor stadium can seat about 4,300 audiences making it one of the most spectacular academies in this part of the world.

The academy will have a commercial academy which will train students from all walks of life including corporates for an annual fee and an Excellence centre which will focus on nurturing future champions.

The Centre of Excellence will have about 25 talented students in the age group 8-15 years to begin with. Preference will be given to the students from surrounding areas and other parts of UP. These students will be sponsored by the academy. The academy will have a head foreign coach and a host of Indian coaches to nurture the talent. The academy will use the methods & techniques which have been tried and tested so far by Gopichand as well as methods that have evolved over the years of exposure to Global Badminton system.