Dipankar Bhattacharjee

Dipankar Bhattacharjee (Assamese: দীপংকৰ ভট্টাচাৰ্য), born February 1, 1972^[1] raised up in Guwahati, Assam (India), has been a star Badminton player from Assam, Northeast India. He has participated in many International tournaments representing India including Barcelona and Atlanta Olympics. He has been Indian National Badminton Champion three times and twice runner-up. In Barcelona Olympics he finished in the last 16 stage, the pre-quarters.

Pullela Gopichand (former All-England Champion) was ranked number two in Indian Badminton team for major part of Dipankar's reign in the Indian Badminton scene.

Early Starter

Dipankar started playing badminton at a very early age. He was five years old when his father Mr. Iswar Bhattacharjee took him out for Badminton training. His father is his first coach and has been a constant guide and adviser who started local tournaments in the Guwahati Indoor Hall (Kanaklata Indoor Stadium) to attract interests from younger kids and their parents for Badminton.

In addition to his own father Dipankar had the fortune of being trained by some good coaches. He had spent few years at Prakash Padukone's Badminton academy at Bangalore and trained with Prakash, Vimal Kumar, Mr. Veedu etc. National level Badminton coaches and State coaches had been a constant guide for him in his achievements.

The Sportsman

Dipankar had been the star attraction in many tournaments. His style of game attracts spectators naturally. He always played fast paced, endurance and offense (smash) based game which always energized onlookers. He was praised many a times especially by Mr. Prakash Padukone as India's one of a kind player who had the potential of taking on the champions from other Asian countries like China and Indonesia, and who could match their level of speed, endurance, and reflex.

Role Change

Often he got injured while playing the game and even while doing his rigorous daily trainings. The lack of proper medical treatments needed for such intensive sportsmen in India during his times was another reason he could not heal properly from his injuries.

He retired early from his game in 2004 after playing the last Indian National Championships at Guwahati. Thereafter he put in his time and energy in launching his dream Badminton Coaching center at Guwahati by name "Iswarati Center for Badminton Learning" or ICBL.^[2] The project was carried on for almost 3 years in a badminton coaching facility in Guwahati.

He is looking forward to a successful change of role from being a star Badminton player to a successful Sports Entrepreneur. He wants to popularize and commercialize Badminton so that it gets well funded and it attracts talented young kids to make a fruitful profession out of their effort. He is a mentor of Indian Collegiate Athletic Program for the sport of Badminton.

Achievements

• Sub-junior National runner-up - Guwahati in 1980
• Junior National Champion - Madras (Chennai) in 1987^[3]
• Senior National Champion - Three times
• Senior National runner-up - Two times
• Represented India in Barcelona (1992) and Atlanta Olympics (1996). He lost in the pre-quarters to Zhao Jianhua, of China, 15-4, 15-12.
• Had been nominated for Arjuna Award couple of times

Hall of Fame

Dipankar's achievements have gone into the record books in the following areas -

• He is the first Olympian from the current state of Assam.
• He is one of the first Badminton players to represent India in Olympics.
• He is the only Senior National Badminton Champion from the North-East India till date (2014).
• He is the only Male Shuttler from India to have made it to Two Olympics (1992 & 1996).

Current status

Dipankar is now working in the capacity of a Manager in Indian Oil Corporation, Marketing Head office in Mumbai. He married Ms. Dahlia Banerjee of Kolkata in 2001 and is blessed with a son Anirban.

He is an MBA graduate from India's leading B- school, S.P.Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai.

References