Improved infrastructure makes Hamirpur badminton talent hub

Improved infrastructure and coaching facilities have turned Hamirpur city into a nursery of badminton players. There was a time when the city had no indoor badminton court for players while now it has 18 indoor courts within a radius of 1,500 metres. In the eighties and the nineties, neither degree colleges nor professional engineering or polytechnic colleges had indoor badminton courts while now not only government institutions but also private colleges and schools have such facilities for their students where players had been groomed and they had excelled at the national level. Last year, the badminton team of Himachal Pradesh won the gold medal in the National School Games Federation Championship. A majority of the players in the state team were from Hamirpur. In the individual category, Shivansh Sharma of the city had won the gold medal.

Rajinder Sharma, who had been the manager and selector of the Indian badminton team, is at present the District Schools Sports Officer. He says that there was no indoor badminton court in the district when he used to play and most of the players had to practise outdoor. This led to poor performance at the state level and no player got selected for the national games. He adds that things have extensively improved now and the results are also encouraging.

There are six badminton courts at the Sports Centre of the National Institute of Technology, four at the Centre of Excellence of the Sports Authority of India (SAI), two at the Town Hall, two at Him Academy School, Vikas Nagar; two at the Gautam Group of Colleges and one each at Polytechnic College and the Bachat Bhawan.

Sharma says that SAI coaches, including Prem Lal and Neha Sood, are grooming badminton players at its courts. At present, 10 selected boys and 10 girls are being trained at the SAI Academy while 15 others are also refining their sporting skills.

Ashok Thakur, who had captained the Degree College badminton team in 1985, says that playing badminton was a tough task those days. “We spent most of our time in the badminton court struggling with the wind direction and playing against university players, who practised indoors in Shimla and Dharamsala, was challenging,” he adds. It feels good to see badminton growing as a sport in the city, he asserts.