Pullela Gopichand, head coach of the Indian national badminton team, made a pretty startling revelation, stating that he got into the sport only because he faced rejection in cricket. Gopichand is an Indian badminton legend in his own right. He had become the second Indian after Prakash Padukone to win the All England Open Badminton Championship. And his institution, the Gopichand Badminton Academy gave India some of her most famous faces in badminton, the likes of which include PV Sindhu, Saina Nehwal, Kidambi Srikanth and Parupalli Kashyap, to name a few. Age-Fudging: BAI Extends VARS Deadline, Asks Players to Rectify Age by July 10.

Speaking at an event by Moneycontrol in Bengaluru, Gopichand jokingly said that he would have loved to play football, but his knees would not be able to support it. This response came while he was answering a question asked by an Artificial Intelligence anchor (AI Kaur).  Quoted by Moneycontrol, here's what the question was “Hey Gopi, big fan of yours. What’s the one sport you love to play other than badminton?” Gopichand replied, “Although my knees don’t support it, I would love to play football…Cricket is… I think we all played cricket. I got into badminton because I didn’t get admission in cricket,” he added. Badminton World Federation Extends Ban on ‘Spin Serve’ Until After Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.

He also hilariously recalled an incident where he was appearing for an engineering exam and the pass mark for the same was 45. The Dronacharya Awardee revealed that randomly ticking answers got him to 38 and that the area of engineering would have been a disaster had he qualified. “If seven of those ticks had been right, I would have got a sports quota and ended up as an engineer, which would have been a disaster for the engineering side,” he shared.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 08, 2023 12:10 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).