Agus Dwi Santoso to prepare Sindhu for Olympics 2020

gopichand-pv sindhu

pv-sindhu

The Sports Ministry has given nod to appoint a new personal coach for World Championship gold medalist shuttler PV Sindhu. It is to be noted that Indonesia’s Agus Dwi Santoso, who has given many World Champions and Olympic medallist, will soon join PV Sindhu, who in limbo ahead of the Olympics, as, soon after winning the World Championship title last year her Korean coach Kim Ji Hyun had resigned citing personal reasons.

Reports claim that Santoso has been brought in keeping in mind the string of poor performances from the top Indian shuttlers like Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth. Reports also suggest that national coach Pullella Gopichand himself had urged Santoso to come to India.

agus dwi santoso

Santoso has been the coach of former world champion, Sydney Olympic silver medallist and Bangkok Asian Games gold medallist Indonesian Hendrawan and All England finalist Budi Santoso.

Badminton Association of India recently reviewed the continuously dipping performance of Indian shuttlers and concluded that Sindhu, Saina, Srikanth are in dire need of a good coach after Kim Ji Hyun’s departure.

At present Park Tai Sung and Dwi Kristiawan are the singles coach at the Gopichand Academy. However, the BAI along with coach Gopichand were in search of an Olympic level coach. It was Gopichand who personally approached Agus Dwi Santoso and urged him to take up the role.

Santoso was to join India last year too, but after getting good money he moved to Thailand. Santoso joined Thailand early last year and coached Busanan Ongbamrungphan, who defeated Saina three times in a row. This time Santoso has asked for eight thousand dollars per month and the ministry has agreed to the amount.

Santoso is the specialist coach for singles competitors. Apart from Indonesia, he has also been a coach of Korea and Thailand. He made Son Wan Ho the world number one during his stay in Korea. The Ministry of Sports has cleared Santoso’s contract and he is expected to join next month.