Indian badminton player Lakshya Sen’s proposal to train with world No 1 Victor Axelson in Dubai has been approved by the Mission Olympic Cell committee members, the Sports Authority of India announced on Thursday.
Lakshya, who was part of the Indian men’s team that won the prestigious Thomas Cup this month, is set to train with Axelson in Dubai from May 29 to June 5 (eight days) and then head out to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on June 19 to train at the Malaysian Training Centre from 19th till 26th June (eight days).
Both the training proposals were approved by MOC in preparation for the Commonwealth Games.
The sanctioned amount will cover the cost of his and his physio’s air travel, boarding and lodging, and out-of-pocket allowance among other expenses.
Alongside Lakshya’s proposal, the MOC Committee also cleared badminton player and Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu’s proposal for financial assistance towards her fitness trainer M Srikanth Madapalli to accompany her for multiple upcoming tournaments.
Srikanth is set to accompany Sindhu during Indonesia Masters (7-12th June), Indonesia Open (14-19th June), Malaysia Masters (28 June to 3 July), and Malaysia Open (5-10th July), and Singapore Open (12-17th July).
For Lakshya, it will be another stint with Axelsen at his base in Dubai. He had been there in 2021 as well.
“There was a lot of off court and physical training before that, and the time in Dubai was for mainly on-court stuff, playing short games, attack vs defence, one versus one... it helped me. Like you could call that my pre-season. Just to get into the rhythm, it helped me a lot. To play different world class players for two weeks, with tough games, it was really useful,” Lakshya had told Scroll.in in an interview about his stint with the Olympic champion.