Hyderabad: Coach of the Indian shuttler Chirag Shetty, Uday Pawar has expressed his joy upon his pupil receiving the prestigious Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award, the country's highest sporting honour. The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports announced the National Sports Awards for the year 2023 on Wednesday and the Indian badminton duo of Rankireddy Satwik Sai Raj and Chirag Shetty were named for the coveted sporting award in the country.
Reflecting on their achievement, Uday Pawar stated that its "big honour not only for Chirag but also for the Goreagon Sports Club" in Mumbai where a badminton hall is being named after Chirag.
"It's a great honour not only for Chirag and Satwik but also for his (Chirag's) parents and badminton family which includes not only coaches but also many of his colleagues, who started or were playing when they (the duo) started playing. So it a big day for all of us. Chirag has somehow kept in touch with all and his former colleagues also come and train in our academy about six times in a year along with Satwik and with their current coach Mathias Boe," Pawar told ETV Bharat in an exclusive conversation.
"This honour means the highest honour in sports, (it is) actually an honour for all those including Goregaon Sports Club, which has last week only decided to name the badminton hall with Chirag's name. All this great things are happening and I'm proud to be Chirag's coach and have been instrumental in him taking up badminton as a sport and ensuring that he reached the international level and the current coach Mathias have done wonderful job, so congratulations to Mathias also."
Uday further revealed that he convinced Chirag's parents to let their son take up the sport as a profession and it paid rich dividends for the Indian athlete.
"When he was just 12 and 13 years old his dad (Chandrashekhar Shetty) told me that they are not interested too much in sports and that time they felt that he was not good in the sport but I convinced them that you should give him a chance till the he becomes 19 or 20 and if he doesn't do well then you can choose any other line (profession). This was reminded to me by his father that whatever he was today, if you did not insist he would have not pursued this sport. Nobody can say that how far a somebody can go," he concluded.
