PRAKASH PADUKONE

DO U KNOW IT?




Prakash Padukone father of Deepika padukone was a famous player of - Badminton.




- Prakash Padukone is a former Indian badminton player from Karnataka. He won the All England Championship and became the first Indian to do so. Prakash was awarded the Padma Shri in 1982.

Prakash Padukone (born June 10, 1955) is a former Indian badminton player from Karnataka. He won the All England Championship 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.

He currently lives in Bangalore with wife Ujjala and two daughters Deepika Padukone, an actress and Anisha Padukone, a golfer. He runs the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy. He was awarded the Arjuna award in 1972.

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. 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.

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 - 1996.

Major achievements