new delhi: Newly crowned Australian Open champion Lakshya Sen says the heartbreak of finishing fourth at Paris Olympics drained his motivation and planted a seed of doubt but renewed focus on physical conditioning and mental clarity helped him rekindle his love for badminton.
The 24-year-old from Almora endured a difficult spell after returning from Paris, where he narrowly missed a medal last year.
“Post the Olympics, it was a little bit hard for me to find motivation again to train really hard. I took a break for some time. I was not doing so well,” Lakshya told a select media after arriving home from Sydney. “I think there was a lot of first round exits as well. A lot of the things I was dealing with mentally, I was still competing in a few tournaments, but I was not really 100% there.”
His downward spiral deepened when a back issue persisted through the Singapore–Indonesia leg.
“There were a few niggles here and there. It was not a major injury but I was getting some back spasms because of high match intensity or the loads in the back,” he said.
Lakshya spent time in hospitals and later visited the Athlete Performance Centre in Salzburg, Austria to strengthen the affected areas. The physical strain was accompanied by mental fatigue.
“There were a lot of things throughout the year, there were a lot of doubts that were there in my mind. And a lot of people had a lot of different opinions about training, about tournaments, about playing,” he said.
A stable backroom staff, including mental trainer Mon Brockman, helped him regain direction. “In the last one year, I’ve been just focusing on the small things and not thinking too much about the results. When I started working with my mental trainer (Mon Brockman from Israel), I think it was important that I find that motivation again. I think somewhere this year, I could again really focus and get back into full training.”