Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted with Thomas Cup and Uber Cup team of the badminton champions, who shared their experiences from the Thomas Cup and Uber Cup. The players talked about different aspects of their game, life beyond badminton and more.
Kidambi Srikanth talked about the great feeling among the player about being recognized by the Prime Minister in such a proud way. Modi asked the team captain about his leadership style and challenges. Srikanth told that individually, everyone was performing great and the task was to bring out their best as a team.
He also expressed his happiness over the privilege of playing the crucial deciding match. On being asked by the Prime Minister about his world number 1 ranking and Gold in Thomas Cup, the ace shuttler said that both the milestones were his dreams and he is delighted to have achieved them.
The Prime Minister said that due to not-so-great performance in earlier years, Thomas cup was not very much talked about and he said it took sometime in the country to sink in the enormity of the achievement of this team.
The Prime Minister said “On behalf of the entire country I congratulate you and your entire team as after decades, Indian flag has been firmly planted. This not a small feat…Keeping the nerve and team together under the tremendous pressure is something that I can understand very well. I congratulated you on phone but now I am feeling the joy of complimenting you in person”.
The Prime Minister shared their happiness and recalled the tweets of the team members who slept with their medal on them, totally sleepless with joy. He told the team that they will win many more medals in the course of time. The have to play a lot and bloom (khelna bhi hai khilna bhi hai) and have to take the country into the world of sports. “Now India can’t lag behind. Your victories are inspiring the generations for sports”, he added.
