I can help the youngsters at Padukone Academy, says Morten Frost

Morten Frost and Prakash Padukone strike a happy pose at the Padukone Dravid Centre of Excellence. Image: Twitter

Bengaluru, February 20:Danish badminton great Morten Frost, who joined the Bengaluru-based Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy (PPBA) as a consultant, hopes he can contribute in creating the next generation of Indian shuttlers.

"I'm happy to be part of PPBA. Hopefully, I can make a little difference. I've been working with a lot of young players, countless in fact. That experience I have. So hopefully, I can help some of the players here," Frost was quoted as saying in local media after an interaction at the Padukone Dravid Centre of Excellence.

Morten Frost presenting an autographed racquet to @vishy64theking and Anand presenting an autographed chess set to Morten as #PrakashPadukone looks on. FUN FACT: Morten said that he was part of the team that won the National chess title in Denmark many years ago pic.twitter.com/6Ih1kEY7Om
— Viren Rasquinha (@virenrasquinha) February 19, 2019

The rivalry between Frost and Prakash Padukone has been part of the badminton foklore since the early 80's.

The Badminton World Federation (BWF) Hall of Famer was excited to reunited with his old friend at PPBA, which is celebrating its silver jubilee.

"We always played in good spirits but the rivalry was fearsome, in the sense that none of us wanted to lose. It was extremely competitive but always in very good spirit. I like that a lot, it was very civilised," the four-time All England Badminton Championship winner recalled.

Frost opined that India should be proud of producing players such as Saina Nehwal, P V Sindhu, Parupalli Kashyap and Kidambi Srikanth.

In today press "Morten Frost singles out Ashmita, Lakshya as next-gen champs" https://t.co/pCNOSG8uzG
— @SportsPdcse (@Sports_PDCSE) February 20, 2019

"The big breakthrough in Indian men's singles was through Kashyap. He was the first one to make himself notice. Saina came as well in women's singles and became good role model and that had a great influence on what happened in last 10 years," said the two-time World Championshipship silver medallist, who has taken up the current assignment through a private arrangement between Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ)and PPBA.