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Para Badminton Coach Responds to Controversy Over Medal Predictions<\/strong><\/p>\n Indian para badminton coach Gaurav Khanna has addressed the backlash from his now-deleted social media post, which predicted medal counts for the Asian Para Games. He dismissed claims that his prediction negatively impacted the players’ morale and accused critics of trying to undermine him due to previous concerns he raised regarding team selection.<\/p>\n Khanna stated that the controversy surrounding his social media prediction is being used to shift focus away from what he called questionable practices in the athlete selection process. He explained that the criticisms emerged only after he expressed his worries to the authorities after the Games had ended.<\/p>\n The Prediction Controversy<\/strong><\/p>\n The now-removed post estimated that India would win 16 medals in para badminton, including two golds, six silvers, and eight bronzes. In the end, India achieved a total of 16 medals but with different specifics: three golds, five silvers, and eight bronzes. This count was lower than the 21 medals (four gold, four silver, and 13 bronze) the country secured at the 2022 Asian Para Games. Following the competition, some athletes pointed out that the prediction added pressure during the event, leading them to request an inquiry into Khanna\u2019s actions from the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and the Sports Ministry.<\/p>\n Khanna, who runs a badminton academy in Lucknow, noted that concerns were not raised immediately after his post. He questioned the timing of the criticisms, suggesting they started one week after the post went live. <\/p>\n “I find it alarming that the public criticisms began around October 27, just after I made my concerns known to higher authorities about the selection irregularities,” he stated.<\/p>\n Criticism from the Para Badminton Community<\/strong><\/p>\n His remarks come as K Prabhakar Rao, chairman of India’s para badminton, claimed that Khanna\u2019s prediction adversely affected the players’ psychology. Rao stated he would discuss the issue with the Badminton Association of India (BAI) to seek suitable actions.<\/p>\n Additionally, six-time world champion Pramod Bhagat expressed his discontent with Khanna\u2019s post. Bhagat, who was predicted to win a silver medal but ended up losing in the finals, described Khanna’s announcement as “unprofessional and ethically questionable.” He emphasized that such statements could create unnecessary stress for athletes during a crucial time when they need support.<\/p>\n Khanna defended himself, questioning how Bhagat could have seen the post since it was live only for a few minutes late at night in Japan. He pointed out that the post was deleted almost immediately after being published.<\/p>\n Concerns Over Player Selection<\/strong><\/p>\n Khanna also raised issues regarding the selection process for the squad, noting that several high-ranking players in Asia were overlooked, despite their requests to be included. He asked why players like Chirag Baretha and Manisha Patel were not selected, despite evidence of their qualifications. <\/p>\n He claimed that the flawed selection process might have cost India more medals, stating that the relevant details were not adequately communicated to the authorities involved. According to Khanna, SAI and the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports (MYAS) made a mistake by accepting the narratives provided by the management without question, which may have caused the nation to miss out on at least four potential medals.<\/p>\n Overall, Khanna believes that the criticisms from Bhagat and others are part of a larger narrative targeting him due to past disagreements.<\/p>\n – End<\/strong><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Para Badminton Coach Responds to Controversy Over Medal Predictions Indian para badminton coach Gaurav Khanna has addressed the backlash from his now-deleted social media post, which predicted medal counts for the Asian Para Games. He dismissed claims that his prediction negatively impacted the players’ morale and accused critics of trying to undermine him due to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[61043,40323,62784,2964,62782,62780,62785,62781,62783,48799],"class_list":["post-47753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-asian-para-games-2026","tag-badminton-association-of-india","tag-badminton-selection-irregularities","tag-gaurav-khanna","tag-gaurav-khanna-medal-prediction","tag-indian-para-badminton","tag-indian-para-badminton-coach","tag-para-badminton-controversy","tag-para-badminton-team-selection","tag-pramod-bhagat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indiabulletinusa.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/indiabulletinusa.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/indiabulletinusa.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indiabulletinusa.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indiabulletinusa.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/indiabulletinusa.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indiabulletinusa.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indiabulletinusa.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indiabulletinusa.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indiabulletinusa.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}