A historic gold medal in team event was the highlight of India's outstanding show at Commonwealth Games says badminton chief coach Gopichand but was critical of scheduling, which he feels prevented them from winning more medals.
Indian shuttlers produced their best ever show at the Commonwealth Games as besides the historic team gold, India also won a gold and silver in women's singles, a silver each in men's singles and men's doubles and a bronze in women's doubles.
"Overall if you look at the performance, I am pretty happy with how things have gone here. The team gold was the highlight. To beat Malaysia in a mixed team event was the highlight, I think it is fantastic," Gopichand said after Indian wrapped up the campaign.
"I think for me, this tournament belongs to Ashwini. Satwik and Ashwini could have ended up with a medal. The win in the team championship was very critical to put the team 1-0 up and give the confidence to Srikanth to beat Lee Chong Wei, I think that was a big win. Lot of credit to them for pulling off against Malaysia."
"The only thing I would say if we would have been lucky, if the scheduling been little favourable we probably could have won couple of medals more. (HS) Prannoy lost close two matches - one to Lee Chong Wei and one to Rajiv (Ouseph) and he could have pulled off one of them. The mixed doubles was a close tie for Satwik and Ashwini, which we could have got another medal."
"She pulled off all the matches in the team and she came out there very strongly in the individual events and that is good to see."
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