Paris Olympics: Prince changing the identity of badminton

It has been 60 years since Nepal started participating in the Olympics. However, badminton made its official Olympic debut at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Before that, badminton was held as an exhibition sport at the 1972 Munich and 1988 Seoul Olympics.

After being included in the Olympics, Nepal is playing for the first time in 32 years. After witnessing this glorious achievement, Prince is now introducing badminton. Badminton is being transformed into an Olympic sport. Only a few sports from Nepal have a history of playing in the Olympics.

Prince returned from training in Sri Lanka only last week. There he received training from Sri Lankan and Indonesian coaches. He has returned after improving his performance. Amidst the busy schedule of flying to Paris, he said to Kantipur, 'I have improved more than in my game 5-6 months ago, I improved in strokes. I am confident that I can give a good fight in Paris.'

President Ramchandra Poudel said goodbye to him on Friday and the Nepali Olympic team will go to Paris on Monday. The Paris Olympics 2024 will open on Friday. From the next day, the badminton competition will start at the Porte de la Chapelle Arena.

Prince will compete in the men's singles. For that, the preliminary 'draw' has also been released. Accordingly, Prince is in a tough group. Group 'P', where world number two and two-time world champion Viktor Axelsen of Denmark, three-time Olympian Misha Zilberman of Israel and Nahat Nguyen of Ireland, are in the group. Missa, who played in the 2012, 2016 and 2020 Olympics, is a medalist at the European Championships. Iris Nguyen is also a European U-17 Championship gold winner.

41 players are competing in men's singles. They will compete in the preliminary stage in 13 groups. A group consists of 3 or 4 players. After the round-robin competition, the top three groups will advance directly to the quarterfinals, while the top ten groups will advance to the last 16. Prince's group also falls in those three groups. Each game will be best of three.

Prince takes positive to be with world champions. He says, 'Olympics is the place where the world champions are present. It's a great opportunity for me to play against top ranked players. I took it positively. Because there is a place for winning and losing. I have to play my game. I will learn a lot from them.' The scholarship was provided by IOC Solidarity through NOC to play Olympic qualifiers. Three out of 10 athletes who have been given scholarships ($750 per month) by the NOC are playing in this Paris Olympics. Among them are Manita Shrestha Pradhan of Prinshit Judo and Sushmita Nepal of Shooting.

The Prince also participated in the Badminton World Federation (BWF) qualifying tournaments under the 'Race to Paris' cycle. Based on his performance in those competitions, he qualified for Olympic selection. A quota of athletes is determined by the BWF so that athletes from all five continents are represented in the Olympics. In badminton, 172 players, both women and men, had a place in this Olympics. Among them, 166 players were selected directly through those competitions, with 83-83 for women and men, while another 6 players were selected from the universality (sovereignty) quota four and the host country's quota two.

Prince was ranked 179th in the world. He belongs to universality quota. For that, there is a rule that the tripartite commission of the Olympics (including representatives of the International Olympic Committee, Badminton World Federation and the organizing National Olympic Committee) will select the players who fall under the universality quota. To qualify for that quota, the IOC had set the criteria of having a scholarship holder, high performance in ranking competitions and the country's top-ranked player. Prince won two matches at the Badminton Asia Championships in China. Which performance helped him a lot in opening the door to the Olympics.

Prince is a 'Guni' player for Nepali Badminton. He took Nepali badminton to the international arena by winning the world number one ranking in the junior category. Now they have reached the Olympics.

Age Prince is in his early 20s. He had a desire to play the Olympics from a young age. He has shared his Olympic dream in many interviews in the past. Born in Darchula, Prince picked up a racket from the age of 6-7. Before he reached his teenage years, he began to achieve success in domestic competitions. At the age of 15, he won the gold medal in the Dubai International Series, an international junior competition. That was in September 2019. After defeating India's Varun Kapoor there, he made a big leap in the world ranking.

Then Prince topped the junior rankings with success in the tournaments included in the rankings. Prince, who won two bronze medals in doubles at the 13th South Asian Games (SAG) on home soil, also played in the Hangzhou Asian Games held in China last year. He was defeated in the round of 32 at Asiad. He has achieved more than a dozen successes in domestic competitions.

While approaching the Olympic journey, Prince said that the contribution of his family, especially his mother, the Badminton Association, the Olympic Committee and all his mentors was remarkable. I have reached this place with their help and support. They also have expectations of me. I am trying to complete it by performing well in the Olympics,' said Prince firmly.

Nepali coach will not be with him in Paris. Ramji Bahadur Shrestha, president of Nepal Badminton Association, says that the names were missing when the longlist was sent. However, he himself is going to Paris as a team official. Chairman Shrestha argues that since the Sri Lankan coach trained by Prince is in Paris, he can get help from him when necessary. In South Asia, seven badminton players from India will play in the Paris Olympics when players from Nepal, Sri Lanka and Maldives have made it 1-1.

Shrestha himself is a former national badminton champion. This is his second Olympic participation as an official. Earlier, he was the General Secretary when he participated in the London Olympics. Chairman Shrestha is also excited. He said, "I will see the players of my sport playing in the Olympic Arena." It will make me feel special pride. He is sure that Prince will play well in Paris. Prince has good experience as he has played many international tournaments. Youth is zealous. He will become a source of inspiration for Nepali badminton in the future.'

Nepal in Olympic history

Nepal has started participating in the Olympics since Tokyo in 1964. Until the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Nepal has made 86 athletes participate in the Olympics in athletics, swimming, boxing, shooting, judo, weightlifting, archery and taekwondo. Athletics runner Vaikunth Manandhar has participated four times in a row, athletics Hari Bahadur Rokay and Tika Bogti, swimming Gaurika Singh and famous Jang Shah and boxing Dal Bahadur Ranamgar and Umesh Maske have participated twice.

Taekwondo's Sangina Vaidya and Deepak Bista made it past the qualifying stage and played in the Olympics. This year Santu Shrestha of table tennis has been added to it. He was chosen as the champion in the South Asian qualifiers. Nepali table tennis is also playing Olympics for the first time. As a

medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Vidhan Lama won bronze in the Taekwondo exhibition match. Nepal had the largest number of athletes participating in the Seoul Olympics. Where there were 18 players in 6 games.