The Gentle Tiger on the Badminton Court

Prakash Padukone was born on 10th June 1955 in Bangalore. He comes from the Konkani speaking community of Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmins. He learnt badminton from his father, Ramesh Padukone who was the Secretary of the Mysore Badminton Association for many years. The first official badminton event where Prakash Padukone participated was the Karnataka State Junior Championship in 1962. He was only seven years of age then. He lost in the very first round. But at the age of nine, he won the State Junior Championship in 1964. At the age of fifteen in1970, he won the National Junior Badminton title. At the age of sixteen in 1971, he won both the Junior National and the Senior National Championship titles. He continued to win at the Senior National badminton level for the next nine years. In 1971, he was included into the team for the Thomas Cup Championship in the Indian International Badminton group. Prakash Padukone’s first international win came about in 1978. Earlier in 1974, he had won a Bronze Medal at the Teheran Asian Games. He also went on to win the Swedish Open and the Danish Open Championships in 1980. He spent much of his international career in Copenhagen and developed a close alliance with Morten Frost, a European badminton player. Prakash Padukone achieved his career peak when he won the All England badminton Championship in 1981 where he defeated Lim Swie King of Indonesia who was defending his title. He is the first badminton player of India to win this prestigious championship. This win also earned Prakash Padukone the number one ranking in the world. He has been the only Indian to reach that position till date and his name is taken along with the greatest badminton players in the world. In 1981, he achieved greater heights by also winning the World Cup Title as well as the Alba Championship at Kuala Lumpur. He was the first Indian to win a World Cup Badminton title. He won the Dutch Open and the Hong Kong Open Championships in 1983. He won a Bronze Medal at the World Badminton Championship that was held at Copenhagen. He retired in 1991 and became the Chairman of the Badminton Association of India and also served as the coach of the Indian National Badminton Team from 1993 to 1996. He is one of the finest and popular Indian badminton players. He has won many international badminton championships and has made the country proud. He has been generally considered as the best badminton player India has got. Prakash Padukone runs a Badminton Academy where he coaches under privileged children as a part of his Academy profile. Along with Geet Sethi, Prakash Padukone has started the Olympic Gold Quest which is an organisation that tries to promote sports in India. He lives in Bangalore with his wife, Ujjala and two daughters, Anishka who is trying to become an international golfer and Deepika who is already a celebrity model and an actress. There is an official biography of Prakash Padukone written by Dev Sukumar called `Touch Play’. He is also popularly known as the `Gentle Tiger’ on the badminton court.