Prakash Padukone

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Prakash Padukone
Prakash Padukone at the Tata Open championship.JPG
Prakash Padukone at the Tata Open championship
Personal information
Birth name Prakash Padukone
Country India
Born (1955-06-10) 10 June 1955 (age 68)
Bengaluru, india
Height 1.85 m (6 ft 1 in)
Handedness Right
Men's singles
Highest ranking 1[1] (1980)

Prakash Padukone is a former Indian badminton player from Karnataka. He was born on 10 June 1955[2] to a Chitrapur Saraswat family.[3] He won the All England Championship in 1980 and became the first Indian to do so. Prakash was awarded the Padma Shri in 1982. He, along with Geet Sethi, has co-founded Olympic Gold Quest which is a Foundation for the Promotion of Sports in India. Prakash Padukone's life story has been chronicled in the biography 'Touch Play', by Dev S. Sukumar. The book is only the second biography of any badminton player.

Personal life

He was born in Padukone (village), village near Kundapura, Udupi district, Karnataka, India from where the surname originates and now he currently lives in Bengaluru with wife Ujjala and has two daughters, Deepika Padukone, an actress and Anisha Padukone, a golfer.[4] His mother tongue is Konkani. He runs the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy. He was awarded the Arjuna award in 1972. In an interview with International Business Times, Prakash said that he and his daughters Deepika and Anisha Padukone were very proud Kannadigas.[3]

Career

Prakash was initiated into the game by his father Ramesh Padukone, who was the Secretary of the "Mysore Badminton Association" for many years.

Padukone's first official tournament was the Karnataka state junior championship in 1962. Though he lost in the very first round, two years later he managed to win the state junior title. He changed his playing style into a more aggressive style in 1971, and won the Indian national junior title in 1972. He also won the senior title the same year. He won the National title consecutively for the next seven years. In 1978, he won his first major international title, the men's singles gold medal at the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Canada.[5] In 1979, he won the "Evening of Champions" at the Royal Albert Hall, London.

In 1980, he won the Danish Open, the Swedish Open and became the first Indian to win the men's singles title at the All England Championship with a victory over Indonesian rival Liem Swie King. He spent much of his international career training in Denmark, and developed close friendships with European players such as Morten Frost.[6]

After his retirement in 1991, he was the chairman of the Badminton Association of India for a short while. He was the coach of the Indian national badminton team from 1993 to 1996.

Major achievements

Rank Event Date Venue
World Championships
3 Singles 1983 Copenhagen, DEN
Commonwealth Games
1 Singles 1978 Edmonton, CAN
Asian Games
3 Team 1974 Tehran, IRAN
3 Team 1986 Seoul, SOUTH KOREA
World Cup
1 Singles 1981
World Grand Prix
1 Singles 1979 Denmark Open
1 Singles 1980 All England Open

References

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  2. http://www.iloveindia.com/sports/badminton/players/prakash-padukone.html
  3. 3.0 3.1 http://www.ibtimes.co.in/deepika-proud-kannadiga-says-prakash-padukone-612906
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  5. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. The iron mask, BadZine.info, 5 January 2007

External links