Anmol Kharb’s wise coach Kusum Singh is in no hurry to furnish the ‘next Sindhu’ to India’s clamouring sports followers, eager to watch another Indian women’s singles badminton star, soar. There are no fast-forwarding frames to a furiously famous future here. At the Sunrise Academy, Anmol is working on the time-pausing holding-jump aerial freeze movement, to nail the smash perfectly.
“A lot of progress curves of athletes are dependent on the gender, age, training years of a particular individual player. We have no plans to suddenly change Anmol’s training goals just because she did well at Asian team championships and is expected to start winning everything,” the coach says.
The 17-year-old did beat the top seed of the Kazakhstan International Challenge and her India senior Malvika Bansod 21-13, 22-20 in the first round on Wednesday though.
The star of India’s Asian team title a month-and-a-half ago with shock wins over Chinese, Japanese and Thai opponents has now embarked on the Tour. She is ranked World No. 333, and Malvika is No. 54, and by any measure, this start to her international circuit events when travelling, ought to get Kusum Singh jumping with joy. “Hopefully Anmol’s father shot a good video of the match and we will analyse her games when she’s back. Or we have to rely on YouTube,” she said of a slow-living approach to Anmol’s training that saw her not crowd her ward with advice.
“We checked on her accommodation and if she was settled in a new city. But otherwise, I don’t usually call her when she’s travelling. She stays in her space, and we want her to stay confident in herself. All we told her before she left was, we know you have the calibre,” Kusum says. She called the first-round upset win a ‘Yeah, not a bad result.’ “Diet and rest are important.”
Whirlwind days
It’s been a whirlwind 40-odd days since Anmol returned with a gold, and had to finish felicitations from the association and her school and assorted other invitations. “She was attending media calls and planning her training was tough initially. We only focussed on her faults from the Asian team event, no drastic additions to training,” the coach said.
The only urgency that’s come into her training is she won’t make an excuse to drop training intensity from 99 per cent to 95 per cent. “Not any more. She said she was keen to prove it wasn’t a flash-in-the-pan performance, and she doesn’t want to be known as a ‘once upon..’ athlete. We don’t want to go to the other extreme like the golden goose story either, and train her like mad. It’s a long process, she should just stay focussed,” Kusum explains.
It’s not stopped the Sunrise Academy coaches from planning specific drills for the 17-year-old. Kusum informs the defence is being bolstered. The variations are being added but with an eye always on maintaining high speed and tempo. “We are looking at adding deception with arm extension. But realistically, at the International level, there are fast exchanges. And top deception at that fast pace is not possible, and still far away for Anmol. We are just ensuring she can confidently execute the simplest variation,” Kusum says. Consistency remains the goal.
The canny coach doesn’t claim to know it all either. “Frankly, even I will know only after 3-4 tournaments that this and this are the pattern of strokes Anmol is playing. International badminton is very different from domestic in the physical structures of players, psychology and environment. Her limited patterns will get read easily by any opponent who anticipates, so we are slowly working on variations,” she says. “She’s just 17. Don’t forget.”
Kusum has a decent sports science backing at the Sunrise Academy and explains that though a much higher speed is desired of Anmol, it will take time to hit the groove. “Strength and endurance is needed for high speed till the end to play explosive strokes when matches go long. Building both takes time,” she says.
Still, the last three weeks have seen Anmol work on the next-shot acceleration. “For acceleration, we are seeing to it that when she finishes a stroke, how quickly she gets under the shuttle for the next return. Besides we are bringing balance into the hold-jump movement.”
Two co-trainees however were picked daily, stationing them at the net for short, snappy drills to help in net control. “We crowd the opposing court, and those two at the net are supposed to put pressure on her to anticipate and react fast. Basically, it is to make her assume the opponent is everywhere in quick time and she has to respond.”
They are also guiding her towards looking at the weight of expectations through a positive lens. “We told her people expect only from those who have something special in them, so don’t take it negatively. There will be no compromise in training. But think pressure-is-pleasure. Olympics might be a distant goal, but right now she should only think of the next opportunity she gets to play,” Kusum says.
Has fame changed Anmol? “No. But she’s gotten more audacious and now throws challenges at coaches who are tired after multiple sessions, to a game. She’ll say ‘Mera match iske saath lagaa do. If I win treat me to chocolate truffle pastry.’ Bachchi ki motivation ke liye, sometimes we coaches lose the game,” Kusum laughs.
Should professional athletes be eating pastries? “It’s okay. She wins!”
The teenager’s rise has also further smartened up the academy program. “We are more alert about rest and recovery. We now allow trainees to participate in tournaments only if their practice has been good. We have confidence, that we can raise not just one Anmol, but many Anmols,” Kusum ends.
2024-04-03 14:14:17
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