#TFGinterview: Working to raise earnings of players; Saina has medal chance: Arvind Bhat
THIRTY-SEVEN-YEAR OLD ARVIND BHAT may have retired, but his association with the sport of badminton is not done yet. He announced his retirement on 19th November 2015 via a press conference. Since then, I wanted to have a detailed conversation with him about his career. Finally got a chance to do so; in fact, the following conversation has much more to offer than it would have had back then.
After he retired, he took up coaching full time. His first big event was the Premier Badminton League (PBL), where he coached Bengaluru Top Guns that had shuttlers like Kidambi Srikanth, Ashwini Ponnappa etc. The team failed to up a great show but it brought a lot of new experiences.
He had made up his mind during his playing days itself that after he retires he would take up coaching. Even then he used to play the role of a mentor to the junior players and though he was a competitor, the players would come to him and take his advice.
"Even in my playing days, I used to travel with the team and play the role of a mentor. I have done that with the top shuttlers which I don't want to name, but all have them have come to me for genuine advice and I have always obliged. Not considering them as competitors but as a mentor I always helped the shuttlers around me."
He retired at the age of 36, and he ended his career on a high. In 2014, aged 35, Arvind won the German Open title, a first for an Indian. And you ask him, what kept him going till that age, comes an honest reply:
"I started playing professionally at the age of 22 which is considered a late time to begin. You need to be physically strong for this kind of sport. So I started lifting weights for the first time at the age of 22. Back then when I started, I remember telling my coach that I only have 7-8 years left so may be at the age of 27 or 28 I would end my career."
"But then when I was 28, I still had that will power and physical strength in me to keep playing for some more time. Now my aim was to win an All England and then retire which never happened. At the age of 35 I was still my playing my best but could never hope for Olympics so then came the German Open. I won the title and I thought to myself that this is a good time to bid adieu and take up something else in badminton as it has so much to offer."
Now that is what you call signing off in style!
Sharing his PBL experiences he said:
"On paper we were a good team, but failed to play according to the expectations. Now in a team format, players look for support from each other, having meetings where each one could point out the flaws and strong points. But that to some extent didn't work out because of a lot of restrictions. For example, we have called for a meeting but at the same time Ashwini has an interview to go for or something else like there are photo-shoots so then the meeting would be cancelled. There was instances where Star Sports had this rule of coaches can't accompany the team while re-grouping before the match, so in all of this that team effort of wanting to put out the best performance did not work well."
But amidst all of these problems nothing has left Arvind upset.
"Everything is a learning phase, I'm a person who never gets upset about anything, even if it's something worst that has happened to me. I always have a positive approach to things in life. Now from PBL, the major learning I took away was working around given a certain period of time and that have a good team on paper necessarily does not provide results. You need to work towards it and execute it well in order to gain results out of it."
At present he works as a coach and director at the White Peacock Badminton Academy in Bangalore. There are three centres now and he wants to expand throughout the country. Talking about how players have to probably leave their hometown and settle in either Hyderabad or Bangalore to concentrate on their career, he said:
"It needs to grow across the country so that we have more players. Specifically talking about North-eastern regions, there are a lot of players coming out from there at the moment. The movements and skills of the sport comes naturally to the Mongolian race and that is we see the Eastern part of Asia dominating the sport at an international level. So we need to recognise these talent and promote them so it then becomes a requirement to have more academies across the country."
He has trained under the prominent names in badminton -- Prakash Padukone, Vimal Kumar and P Gopichand. He accepts the fact that having known how they function helps a lot in his approach towards coaching.
But the Bangalore-based former shuttler does not want to just concentrate on coaching, but also look into the administrative and business part of it. He wants to make use of the sport at the business level. Working towards things like increasing the amount that a shuttler gets when he/she wins a tournament. He wants to be able to make badminton players earn at least 10 per cent of what tennis players earn.
"At present my contribution towards coaching and at the business level is 50-50 but in the long term I would want give my 100% for the latter part. But at the same time not letting go of coaching completely. I guess it is high time that badminton players earn more considering it is an individual sport. The players only one 1 per cent of what tennis players earn on winning a tournament. This needs to change and I want to give my best in order to bring about a change."
He also added that in future he would be interested in coaching a single player or even two instead of a group of players, which is what he is doing at the moment.
"In the coming years I want to coach just one player or maximum of two players. I think I would be able to give more in doing so. Just like in tennis, where players have their own coaches, I want to do something similar. Right now, it is the beginning so I am coaching group of players at the academy."
White Peacock academy is a private company where people like Arvind have put their own money and trying to make ends meet. So they offer high level coaching which then helps generate revenue for the elite academy.
"I have put my soul into this academy and want it provide to those who come the best facilities. The elite academy is where top shuttlers are part of and who refuse to pay stating that they are the brand ambassadors so what we do is provide high-quality coaching at the lower levels."
Considering the Olympics is around the corner and not talking about it, leaves the conversation incomplete. When asked what he has to say about the seven-member team who will represent India and the highest ever for badminton, he said,
"It is moment of pride as this is the first time that such a large number for badminton from India is going so I wish each one of them luck. But realistically the medal hopes are only from Saina."
He further states his reason.
"There is potential in players like (PV) Sindhu and (Kidambi) Srikanth but in reality to state the truth, only Saina can get us a medal and that the chances I'm putting my money is on a Bronze. The competition at such a stage is of the highest level. But at the same time, one cannot underestimate the others; just maybe if the draw works well for them then you never know."
When asked if the doubles players Jwala Gutta/Ashwini Ponnappa stand a chance considering both are confident and have said it out loud that they will bring back a medal.
"Not at all, I don't think so because taking into consideration their performances lately, it is going to be very tough for them. The standard of doubles is much higher at the international level. To say, tomorrow even Manu/Sumeeth will say that they will win, but one needs to see the numbers and it says unfortunately they don't stand a chance to win."
This then led to the next question as why India lags in the doubles category.
"See it also has to do with the culture as back in the days when Prakash Padukone was playing it was all about singles, he then went onto open an academy which focused mainly on singles and so did Gopichand. The difference in other countries is that the government takes initiative in building such programmes which is not the case in India. But I think this trend also is slowly changing."
To conclude, he sent his wishes to the badminton contingent that will travel to Rio.
"I just want to wish them all the best, hope that luck favours them in all aspects and they play well and also hope that it doesn't turn out to be unlucky for them."
