Paris (France): The Paris 2024 Olympics came to an end on August 11 and the Indian contingent conncluded their campaign with six medals. Many Indian athletes finished in fourth position in the competition and the Indian shuttler Lakshya Sen was one of the players who missed an opportunity to earn a medal as he lost the bronze medal match.
Indian badminton legend and coach Prakash Padukone didn’t mince his words after Lakshya’s defeat saying that players should learn to handle pressure and be accountable for their results. His comments sparked a discussion amongst the badminton community and Ashwini Ponappa came down hard at Padukone saying he was trying to throw the player under the bus. But, Padukone has now got backing from the former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar.
Gavaskar has also said that if making excuses would have been a discipline, India would have won gold medals.
"He has always been reticent and publicity-shy, and he goes about his life with as much quiet as his famous dribble at the net. Therefore, his frank comments after the badminton disappointment came as a surprise to so many who have known him over the years to keep his counsel and not say much.
"It also stirred up a debate where the majority tried, as is the modern way, to take the side of a current would-be champion and not that of a past-proven world champion. Making excuses is where our country will win gold medals every single time, so the debate around his assessment was more about that than looking without tinted glasses at what he said," Gavaskar wrote in a column for Sportstar.
Lakshya was up against Malaysia's Lee Zii Jia in the bronze medal match. After winning the first set, Lakshay allowed the opponent to make his way back into the fixture by winning the second one. In the third one, he let slip an 8-3 lead which culminated in his defeat by 21-13, 16-21, 11-21 in a 71-minute match.
Reflecting on Lakshya’s performance, Sunil Gavaskar called him ‘garden me ghoomne wala’
"To then see a 20-17 and 7-0 lead being squandered off in the semifinal and then lose the bronze medal match after winning the first game comfortably must have been gut-wrenching indeed. He, Vimal Kumar, the BAI and the government's TOPS had done everything possible, but when it came to the crunch, Lakshya was, in the famous words of the Indian cricket team captain," garden mein ghoomne wala," he added.
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