GoSports Foundation
For the last 10 years, the Inlaks Foundation in association with the GoSports Foundation supports young sportspersons under the latter’s athlete scholarship programmes. These scholarships provide financial support to high performing sportspersons, badminton athletes in particular, in their run up to becoming world-class athletes.
The historic win of the men’s badminton team at the Thomas Cup was a moment of great pride for Inlaks, as we have supported 4 players from the winning team, Kidambi Srikanth, HS Prannoy, Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy.
In this week’s post, we chat with Deepthi Bopaiah - CEO, GoSports Foundation to understand the rigour it takes to be an award winning sportsperson.
GoSports Foundation is a non-profit venture working towards the development of some of India’s top talents in Olympic and Paralympic disciplines. Can you please tell us a little more about the Foundation and the various sports/ athletes it supports.
The GoSports team at the 2021 Annual Sports Awards Night
GoSports Foundation is a national award winning non profit organization working towards enabling sporting excellence across Olympic and Paralympic disciplines.
Shuttler Malvika Bansod - Supported in 2020
The Foundation presently supports 130 athletes across a host of athlete scholarship programmes and over the years has successfully created sporting champions who have become national role models and change makers. Some of the finest sportspersons across diverse sports to have been supported under the GoSport Foundation's programmes include:
Kidambi Srikanth - Shuttler: Former men's singles world number 1 and captain of the 2022 Thomas Cup winning Team India
Avani Lekhara - Para-Shooter: First Indian woman to win two medals at a single Paralympic campaign - 1 gold, 1 bronze
Pramod Bhagat - Para-Shuttler: First ever Paralympic medal winner for India in Badminton - gold medal
Bhavani Devi - Fencer: First Indian fencer to qualify for the Olympics and win a match.
Sajan Prakash - Swimmer: First Indian swimmer to breach the Olympic 'A-cut' time.
Nethra Kumanan - Sailor: First Indian sailor to qualify for the Olympics.
Dipa Karmakar - Gymnast: First female gymnast to represent India at the Olympics.
We were thrilled to hear of the men's badminton team's historic win at the Thomas Cup. We were even happier to learn that 4 of the team members are Inlaks beneficiaries. Could you please share some insights into the kind of rigour and training the players take to achieve such accolades?
Team India's historic Thomas Cup victory was a tremendous feat, signalling the coming of age of Indian badminton at the world's biggest stage.
Shuttler HS Prannoy - Supported in 2021
It is beyond fulfilling to have played a role in the sporting journey of some of these champion athletes, and I'm sure that Inlaks Foundation feels a tremendous sense of pride at having supported 4 of the athletes who represented Team India at the 2022 Thomas Cup.
Competing at the highest level, these athletes undergo an extremely rigorous and comprehensive training process that lays emphasis on physical as well as mental conditioning. Sports science experts as well as performance analysts are sought out to focus on aspects such as nutrition and physiotherapy and make marginal improvements to each facet of their games. At GoSports Foundation we recognise the importance of a holistic support structure to enable athletes achieve sporting excellence and provide them with the same under our athlete scholarship programmes.
Inlaks has supported athletes via GoSports for 10 years. How has Inlaks' contribution supported the developments of athletes?
For 10 years now, Inlaks has expressed its faith and belief in GoSports Foundation's philosophy and vision, and this is something we remain supremely thankful for.
While the Foundation now has a host of partners providing support across different scholarship programmes, I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude towards Amita ma'am and the rest of the team for showing immense faith and foresight by offering badminton scholarships during the initial years of GoSports Foundation's operations. The support provided by Inlaks has been truly instrumental.
Over the years, Inlaks has supported a host of talented athletes in the space of badminton, who have gone on to achieve some significant successes and become athletes of global repute. Some of them include:
Kidambi Srikanth: Captain of the 2022 Thomas Cup winning team and achieved a career high men's singles ranking of 1.
HS Prannoy: Member of the 2022 Thomas Cup winning team and achieved a career high men's singles ranking of 8.
Sameer Verma: Achieved a career high men's singles ranking of 11.
These successes have been made possible because of Inlaks's commitment to positively impact Indian sports and we look forward to continuing to work together and create more champions for India.
Do the halls of GoSports have any other promising athletes that we should look out for in the future?
Para-Javelin Thrower Sumit Antil with his Paralympic gold medal
Across its athlete scholarship programmes, GoSports Foundation has a host of talented young athletes across with the ability to become world renowned athletes in the future.
The current roster of young and promising athletes includes a diverse range of sporting disciplines such as weightlifting, race walking, sailing, sport climbing, fencing, tennis, and many more.
Some of these athletes have given tremendous accounts of themselves and done the country proud at the Youth Olympics and other junior events, while foraying impressively into the senior circuit as well. With continued determination and discipline we are confident in their evolution into global sporting champions.
Cover photo: Men’s badminton team after winning the Thomas Cup 2022
