Pullela Gopichand

Our Great Coach on this episode is Indian National Badminton Coach, Pullela Gopichand.

As a player Gopichand won his first National Badminton Championship title in 1996, and went on to win the title five times in a row, until 2000.

In 1999 he won the Toulouse open championship in France and the Scottish open championship. And then in 2001 he won the prestigious All England Open Badminton Championships.

He started coaching in 2004, and in 2008 founded the Gopichand Badminton Academy.

In the last 120 years, India has won 35 Olympic medals; Gopichand has coached 3 of these from the Academy he set up.

He also coached players to win 4 World Championship medals, including 1 Gold and 15 Super series titles.

Gopi is a coach with a deep appreciation of the role that mindfulness, passion and belief can play in shaping individual performance.

He believes that your mental strength comes from the efforts you put in to being physically strong , and that this physical strength comes from your training, recovery, nutrition and overall lifestyle decisions.

He is also driven to create change in the world around him through, sharing his learning on what is required to be a world champion with whoever is willing to put in the work and make the required sacrifices.

Some of the other key parts of this interview were:

• His belief that science, not the athlete should drive the athletic system in India. And he describes this system as being coach-led, sport science driven and athlete centric.
• The importance of athletes managing their life outside of their sport, so that their mindset develops in a holistic way.
• And The importance of having people around you who don’t just tell you good things, but rather the truth that you have to hear.

It took a long time to reach Gopi for this interview, and I am so glad I preserved. His approach to life and leadership resonated with me strongly, and I hope you enjoy this interview as much I did.

If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com

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