Pandimukkala Venkata Vara Lakshmi, better known as P. V. V. Lakshmi, is an Indian former badminton player. She is an eight-time Indian national champion in

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players pe ...

and represented India in the

1996 Atlanta Olympics The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, ...

. She is also the wife of Pullela Gopichand. She was the bronze medalist in badminton at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in the Women's Team event.

Gopichand Badminton Academy

P. V. V. Lakshmi, was very supportive of Gopichand during the formation of

Gopichand Badminton Academy Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy (PGBA) is a badminton training facility in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. Founded in 2008 by the 2001 All England Open Badminton Champion, Pullela Gopichand, the facility trains several badminton players such ...

and even contributed to the effort of securing monetary support. Despite other donations, Gopichand could only gather US$1.75 million. It was then they decided to mortgage his family home and raise the remaining money for the already delayed project. In 2008, the facility was eventually completed at the cost of $2.5 million. Immediately after the construction, the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...

sent the

Commonwealth Games The Commonwealth Games, often referred to as the Friendly Games or simply the Comm Games, are a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930, and, with the exce ...

team to train at this facility. The government increased the daily rate they pay per player to $20 for this special Games camp. This was a big jump from the $5 daily fee per player that the government had previously paid for other training camps. In 2008, they appealed to

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...

, the

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

cinema industry to become badminton's brand ambassador. They felt that by having a popular cinema icon supporting the sport will help popularize it. Despite

Saina Nehwal Saina Nehwal (; born 17 March 1990) is an Indian professional badminton player. A former world no. 1, she has won 24 international titles, which includes ten Superseries titles. Although she reached the world's 2nd in 2009, it was only in 2015 ...

's success in international tournaments, Gopichand and Lakshmi found it hard to run the Academy. To run it at an optimal level, it requires $300,000 a year. As of 2010, he was making do with $100,000 to pay the training cost for 60 players and was holding off hiring more coaches.

Achievements

IBF International

Personal life

P. V. V. Lakshmi married fellow badminton player Gopichand on 5 June 2002. They have two children, a daughter named Gayathri and a son named Vishnu. Her daughter Gayathri, who is the elder of the two siblings, won the 2015 U-13 National Badminton Champion. Her son Vishnu is currently training at Gopichand academy. After marriage, Gopichand concentrated on badminton academy and Lakshmi helped him.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lakshmi, P. V. V. Living people Indian female badminton players Olympic badminton players for India Badminton players at the 1996 Summer Olympics Sportswomen from Vijayawada, India Racket sportspeople from Vijayawada Sportswomen from Hyderabad, India Indian national badminton champions Commonwealth Games medallists in badminton Commonwealth Games bronze medallists for India 20th-century Indian women 20th-century Indian people Badminton players at the 1998 Commonwealth Games 1974 births Medallists at the 1998 Commonwealth Games