SSC
In which year did Pullela Gopichand win the All England Open Badminton Championship?
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Answer: Option D — 2001
Detailed Solution
Pullela Gopichand won the men's singles title at the All England Open Badminton Championships in March 2001 in Birmingham. He defeated Chen Hong of China in the final, 15-12, 15-6. He became only the second Indian to win this prestigious title, after Prakash Padukone in 1980.
More about Pullela Gopichand:
- He was born on 16 November 1973 in Nagandla, Prakasam district, Andhra Pradesh.
- He won the National Badminton Championship five times in a row (1996-2000).
- He won bronze at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in men's singles.
- He received the Arjuna Award (1999), the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna (2001), the Dronacharya Award (2009), the Padma Shri (2005) and the Padma Bhushan (2014).
Gopichand as a coach:
After injuries ended his playing career, he founded the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy in Hyderabad in 2008. He is said to have mortgaged his house to fund it.
He has been the chief national coach of the Indian badminton team.
He has coached many of India's best players, including Saina Nehwal (Olympic bronze 2012), P. V. Sindhu (Olympic silver 2016, bronze 2020, World Champion 2019), Kidambi Srikanth, Parupalli Kashyap, H. S. Prannoy and Sai Praneeth.
He is credited with turning India into a major badminton nation.
The All England Championships:
- It was first held in 1899 and is the oldest badminton tournament in the world.
- It was considered the unofficial world championship until the BWF World Championships began in 1977.
- Indian men's singles champions: Prakash Padukone (1980) and Pullela Gopichand (2001).
- Saina Nehwal (2015) and Lakshya Sen (2022) reached the final.
Why not the other options?
- ✗1980 is when Prakash Padukone won the All England title.
- ✗1999 is when Gopichand received the Arjuna Award.
- ✗2005 is when he received the Padma Shri.
Quick tip
Remember: Pullela Gopichand = All England champion 2001 (second Indian after Prakash Padukone, 1980); coach of Saina, Sindhu and Srikanth; Gopichand Academy, Hyderabad.
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Sports — Preparation
This question tests your understanding of Sports, a key topic in the General Knowledge section. The detailed solution above uses a step-by-step approach to show the reasoning, and where available, a shortcut that helps you solve similar questions in under 90 seconds during the actual exam.
This topic covers sports GK: major tournaments and their venues, trophies and cups associated with each sport, sports terms, the number of players in a team, sports awards in India, Olympic and Asian Games facts, and famous sportspersons and their achievements. Common questions ask which sport a trophy belongs to (such as the Durand Cup for football or the Ranji Trophy for cricket), which term is used in which sport, and where a tournament was held. Records and results change after every season, so pair static facts such as team sizes and terms with recent results from current affairs. Practise the sports questions below, written in the style of the general awareness sections of exams such as SSC, banking, railways, CUET GAT, MAH CET and CLAT. Each question comes with a detailed explanation that adds related facts, so every question helps you revise more than one point.