Leander Paes: Olympic medal is my biggest achievement

Leander Paes picked his bronze medal win at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics Games as the biggest achievement of his career. In an interview with Indranil Basu on Sportskeeda Live, he has also expressed his delight on having inspired a lot of future Indian athletes.

When asked about his biggest achievement he replied, “I would say that winning my Olympic medal would be my most cherished trophy. Winning the Atlanta Olympics, because it was in singles, was my most cherished because I did it for our country, I did it for our flag.”

Paes expressed his joy that India has managed to win at least one individual Olympic medal in every edition of the Games post the 1996 Olympics. He said, “but since 1996, I was very happy that in every other Olympics we came back with individual medals.”

Paes said that he is happy to inspire these champion athletes to take up sport and attain these lofty heights.
“There are so many individual medal winners who have come post-1996. But I was very happy to be the first one to inspire those individual athletes.” Paes added.

He said that he is also inspired by the performances of these great athletes. He feels blessed to represent India during this period of sporting excellence. The 7-time Olympian gave examples of Rajyavardhan Rathore, Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu, Karnam Malleshwari, Abhinav Bindra, Sushil Kumar.

Since Leander Paes’ medal-winning effort at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, India has bagged a total of 13 individual medals in the next five editions of the Olympics, which include Abhinav Bindra’s, Gold Medal.