How Pramod Bhagat made a comeback

A Paralympic gold. Multiple World Championship titles. Two gold medals at the Asian Para Games. The World No.1 crown. Pramod Bhagat had seen it all.

Yet, September 2025 had something different in store for the Indian shuttler.

He was playing his first tournament after serving out an 18-month ban for breaching anti-doping regulations. Making the final of the China Para Badminton International may have been satisfactory on another day, but Bhagat was looking to prove a point. To himself. To reclaim his place among the best.

Only now, he had lost the first game to Indonesia’s Muhammad Al Imran—around 15 years his junior, who had debuted on the international circuit months earlier. There were doubts and questions alike, in his abilities and whether world badminton had sped past him while he sat despondent on the sidelines. And if he was still as good at 37 years.

In that moment, his mind raced back to the mountains in Ladakh. An environment he had recently discovered, where he had learned how to look past the difficult moments in life by embracing the tranquillity around him and simply slowing things down.

“The mountains taught me to be calm in difficult moments. I realised that I was engaging my opponent in shorter rallies and making it really easy for him. So I decided to extend the rallies and slow down the pace of the game,” Bhagat recalls.

It was the longest match he’s played—2 hours, 10 minutes. The final score read 15-21, 21-19, 21-16. And alongside the title, there was redemption for Bhagat.

“There was pressure that I had never experienced before. This was an important win against someone who has picked up the game really fast and is the current World No.2,” he says.

It laid the foundation for his latest triumph—the Para World Championship in Manama, Bahrain, in February. Bhagat’s sixth title and the most by any singles player.

“I was an aggressive 21-year-old when I won the first in 2009. Now, I try to understand the situation and execute things, a lot stronger mentally too. The sixth one is special, since there are so many emotions attached to it after all that I’ve been through,” he says.

At the start of 2024, Bhagat had one sole aim—to defend his gold at the Paris Paralympics in August. No Indian had done it before. This was his moment to create history and form was on his side.

In February that year, he had picked up his fifth World Championship crown in Pattaya, Thailand. There was a plan in place to keep building, until he was informed of the “three whereabouts failures within 12 months” by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) Anti-Doping Division. His appeal was rejected; the ban meant he would miss the Paralympics.

“It was harsh and I was clear that it wasn’t such a big mistake. Then, there were reports that suggested I had consumed a banned substance, a lot of miscommunication that had to be cleared out. What was more painful was to see everybody playing when I couldn’t. And of course, missing the Paralympics, an athlete’s dream,” he says.

For a few weeks, Bhagat withdrew into his shell, trying to make sense of it all. The ban played on his mind, the missed opportunity rankled. He needed a place to get away from it all, he had heard that the mountains had a lot to offer.

Bhagat and two of his close friends set off from Manali towards Leh on rented motorcycles. This was alien territory; the air was thin, the breathing laborious during the early days. But he soaked in the untouched terrain of rugged mountains and clear streams. And the warmth of the locals in these places.

“That trip relieved me of a lot of emotions. I started focusing on myself again once back home,” he says.

Bhagat began training in Odisha. But he knew he needed momentum to catch up on the time lost. Through his doubles partner, Sukant Kadam, he reached out to former Olympian Nikhil Kanetkar again.

“I’ve been training with him occasionally since 2016 and it’s always been productive. We got together and created a schedule with an entire team of physios, masseurs, dieticians and training partners,” he says.

After the final in China, Bhagat travelled to Nigeria, Australia, Indonesia and Japan over the next few weeks. He won the singles in all those tournaments, save the one in Indonesia. But he bounced back in Japan, winning the singles, doubles and mixed doubles. It made him realise that things were on track.

After winning gold in the singles and doubles at the Egypt Para Badminton International in January this year, Bhagat spent the next month-and-a-half working towards the World Championships. The pressure was off him, he knew he had rediscovered his touch.

“Having Kanetkar sit behind me was a constant reminder of what I was playing for. I was now familiar with every opponent and their style of play, and knew what I had to do,” he says.

Bhagat took on Al Imran again in the final; he registered a straight-game victory. He returned with six World Championship titles, more than his idol Lin Dan’s five. And joy and relief in equal measure as he took to his next training session.

“Gold at the Asian Para Games in October is the focus here on. But before that, I’ll make a trip to the mountains again,” he says.

Shail Desai is a Mumbai-based freelance writer.