Olympian shuttler PV Sindhu wins bronze in the shuttle race against Chinese shuttler Hebing Jiao. The PV Sindhu legacy has made India proud. Exceptional achievement as the first Indian woman and the only Indian athlete to win two consecutive medals at the Olympics, the Silver at Rio Olympics 2016 and the Bronze at Tokyo Olympics 2020.
Sindhu dominated Bing Jiao 21-13, 21-15 to bounce back from her semi-final loss to Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei. Despite the heartbreaking loss, her confident demeanour in the bronze medal match was evident right from the start. Sindhu’s exemplary smashes caused problems for He Bing Jiao, but also her excellent ability to retrieve made sure that the He Bing Jiao had to work twice as hard to win points.
In game one, Sindhu excelled because of her speed, power, and guile, defeating Bing Jiao 21-13. After gaining an early lead in the first, she landed on her feet in the second to take a 4-1 advantage, which she extended to 11-8 at the half. Even though He Bing Jiao came close to making it 11-11, Sindhu once again came out strong and started to pull ahead. Despite He Bing Jiao’s best efforts, Sindhu remained unmoved as she won two more consecutive points to finish it off at 19-15.
The defence has always been Sindhu’s weakness, but in this game, it was much stronger. Pusarla’s Coach Park Tae-Sang Told PTI “For Sindhu defence has been a weakness, there is no problem with her attack. Every player, every coach knows that and today her defence was 200%. It was superb. The entire tournament, barring yesterday, she has been very good in defence,” “We have been working every day on her net play and defence and I am happy it worked”.
Coach Park Tae-Sang’s international career as a player ended in 2002 with him earning a gold medal at the Asian Games. After turning professional coach in 2013. In late 2019, after the abrupt departure of women’s coach Kim Ji Hyun, he took over the duty of training Sindhu after serving as a national coach for the Korean badminton team for five years from 2013 to 2018.
Speaking after winning the bronze medal match against He Bing Jao, Badminton World Federation (BWF) quoted Sindhu as saying, “It makes me feel really happy because I`ve worked hard for so many years. I had a lot of emotions going through me should I be happy that I won bronze or sad that I lost the opportunity to play in the final? But overall, I had to close off my emotions for this one match and give it my best, my all, and think about the emotions. I`m really happy and I think I`ve done really well. It`s a proud moment getting a medal for my country.”
In addition, Sindhu said that the focus will now be on the Paris 2024 Olympics.
On an emotional Instagram note, Chinese Taipei’s Tai Tzu-Ying revealed how PV Sindhu encouraged her after the match. China’s Chen Yufei defeated Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-Ying in the women’s singles final. After finishing second at the Tokyo Games, Tai had to settle for the silver medal. After the medal ceremony, she revealed how PV Sindhu offered her words of encouragement after the final loss.
She hugged Tai and told her she did a wonderful job in the final, Tai wrote on Instagram. Sindhu’s encouragement after the final made her cry, the Chinese Taipei shuttler added. “PV Sindhu hugged me and told me I know you are sick but you did very well, but today was not your day,” “She held me in her arms and said she knew it all. That sincere encouragement made me cry,” she added.
From being the first Indian to become Badminton World Champion to winning medals for India in two consecutive Olympics, she has indeed built a legacy.
