Badminton-All change for India's Sindhu in push for Olympic gold

LONDON : A new coach, new mentor and a new home - India's PV Sindhu has overhauled her life in an all-out bid to land an Olympic badminton gold in Paris after having to settle for silver and bronze in the previous two Games.

She's now in Bengaluru, India, far from Hyderabad, where she trained through most of her career, the highlights of which include bagging the women's singles silver in Rio 2016, bronze in Tokyo and being crowned world champion in 2019.

But the move in October was deemed essential for Sindhu, who wanted to be closer to her new mentor, Prakash Padukone, the Indian badminton great and father of Bollywood superstar Deepika Padukone.

That's not the only change Sindhu has made as she gears up to be "smarter" for the Paris 2024 Olympics, having recently replaced several members of her team, from her personal fitness trainer to her physiotherapist.

This week, Indonesia's Agus Dwi Santoso started coaching Sindhu, who parted company with Malaysia's Muhammad Hafiz Hashim, whom she first said she would work with in July after splitting with long-time coach Park Tae-Sang earlier in the year.

"I'd been training with Hafiz and then I wanted some change - I thought it was not suiting my game - and that's when I asked Agus," Sindhu told Reuters in an interview.

"It's a new year, a new team. Every aspect I touch on is going to be completely different," Sindhu said. "Paris is something that's an ultimate game for us. I think we need to be 100 per cent in every aspect, physically, in skill and in strategy.

"It's always good to have some change," said the 28-year-old, who decided she had to shake up her team and "go forward" with Agus, whom she has known for years.

"He's really good for me because every coach has a different