We all know that the Indian shuttler PV Sindhu was rewarded in a great manner after she won silver medal in the Rio Olympics but do you know how much cash award did Carolina Marin, the Spanish badminton player who defeated Sindhu, got?
Carolina is in India nowadays as she is taking part in the ongoing Premier Badminton League and she was quite surprised to know the amount of cash prize that Sindhu got after losing to her in the finals. While addressing a press conference, Carolina said,
“I heard she (Sindhu) got millions. That’s huge. I, too, got some cash award from the Spanish government.”
PV Sindhu is the first Indian female badminton player to win a silver medal at the biggest sporting event, Olympics. As per Sportskeeda, Carolina said,
“I actually roughly received 10-15 % of the money Sindhu got, but this is a great indicator that the sport is so popular here. Back in Spain, it’s only popular in certain regions; even there the craze isn’t this big. So the country is a model of sorts for commercial development of the sport.”
Carolina became the first non-Asian female player to win the gold medal in badminton singles at Olympics after she defeated Sindhu and the government of Spain awarded her with the cash prizes of only €94,000 (approx Rs. 70 lakh).
PV Sindhu became a household name and this 21 years old shuttler received Rs. 13 crore in cash awards only by various state governments and institutions. Not only this, the cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar presented her a luxury car on behalf of Hyderabad Badminton Association’s president, V Chamundeswaranath. What’s more, Sindhu has also been roped by various companies for advertisement purposes and these deals amount to nearly Rs. 50 crore.
Carolina has also got the chance to play against Saina as the former defeated the latter in the finals of All England and World Championship last year. When she was asked to give her opinion on the comparison of both the Indian shuttlers, she said,
“I think both are great players, I can’t select one of them, both are different and tough to beat. I really have to get my 100 per cent to defeat them.”
Presently, Carolina is playing for Hyderabad Hunters in the second season of PBL and the 11-point best of three games scoring system is used in this tournament, something which BWF wants in the International levels too.
Let’s hope that our Indian shuttlers perform in the same manner as they have been awarded with cash prizes.