Sindhu's Best Yet To Come, Says Coach Gopichand At Packed Hyderabad Stadium

Hyderabad: PV Sindhu's best is yet to come, her coach Pullela Gopichand promised as his star pupil beamed beside him at the packed Gachibowli stadium in Hyderabad on Monday.

He credited her "fantastic genes" for her stupendous performance at the Rio Olympics. The badminton ace thanked her coach and her parents, both former volley ball players, for their support.

Sindhu returned home with her silver Olympic medal, the first won by an Indian woman, to the kind of welcome only World Cup winning cricket teams have got so far.  

For almost three hours today, the champ and her coach rode through a cheering city in an open double-decker bus, called in specially from Mumbai and draped with long strings of marigold, as it slowly drove 30 km from the airport to the Gachibowli stadium. On the way, thousands lined up to cheer Sindhu, 21, many showering her with flower petals.
 At the stadium, they did a victory lap in a jeep before being greeted on stage by the Telangana government which organised the celebrations.

"Thank you all for the blessings...it made my day," said an overwhelmed Sindhu to the cheering crowd.

Along with wrestler Sakshi Malik, who won a Bronze, Sindhu ensured that India did not return empty handed from Rio in Brazil, where this year's Olympic Games ended yesterday. The US topped the tally with 121 medals, 46 of them Gold.

"Hats off to women for saving our face in front of the world," said Mr Gopichand, who has now trained two Olympic medalists in Saina Nehwal and Sindhu.
 At the airport in the capital they currently share, top politicians of both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh jostled with each other to greet the champion. While Sindhu's mother P Vijaya is from Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh, her father PV Ramana is from Adilabad in Telangana.

Both states have announced cash rewards, land and jobs to Sindhu to celebrate her Silver. Pullela Gopichand thanked both states and remarked, "Sindhu belongs to India."

"I think she is still far away from complete transformation. I believe we have just seen glimpses of what she is capable of," the star coach said, adding, "She has got potential and I was waiting for her to realise that. It might take time."

At Rio, PV Sindhu blazed through to the final, beating the World no 2, before she lost to World no 1 Carolina Marin of Spain 21-19, 12-21, 15-21 in a pulsating match that lasted an hour and 23 minutes.