Olympics: I’ll never forget that meal I had with Graf

I qualified for the Olympics towards the end of my career when my ranking had already dipped. It was in Barcelona 1992 where badminton was introduced as a medal sport. However, I lost in the opening round to Denmark’s Thomas Stuer-Lauridsen, who went on to win bronze.

Despite my early exit, I would go to the tracks and watch athletes train. I watched the 100m race that Christie won. Since I was based in England, I used to train at the Crystal Palace and Christie also came there. When he won the 100m gold, I took pictures with him.

I also watched long jump from close quarters. Mike Powell was there but Carl Lewis came and won the long jump gold quite easily. I was thrilled to see them train. You would not find even one sportsperson with excess fat. Lewis qualifying for the long jump finals was memorable. There were others including Powell struggling in the preliminary jumps. Lewis qualified for the final with one jump, wore his track suit, and walked away! Call it arrogance or confidence, you could see the aura of Carl Lewis.

In the village, I won’t forget the meal I had with Steffi Graf, one of my favourite athletes, sitting opposite me. I was taken aback when she came in. I did not strike a conversation with her, though.
However, when I went to the 2004 Athens Olympics as coach, I spoke with Roger Federer. Since we had Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi on our side, we could meet some top tennis players.

I was fortunate to go to the Olympics both as player and coach. Though I also participated in the Asian Games as well as in the Commonwealth Games, the Olympics was totally different.

–Vimal Kumar is a co-founder, director, and chief coach at the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy in Bangalore.
He spoke to G Krishnan