Jaipur: The joint secretary of the Badminton Association of India (BAI) and key member of the 2026 BWF World Championships organising committee, KK Sharma, is confident of successful hosting of the forthcoming global event scheduled to be held at the Indira Gandhi Arena from Aug 17-23 in New Delhi.The BAI is holding the World Championships after a long gap of 17 years. The national governing body of sport had hosted the mega event in 2009 at the Gachibowli Indoor Stadium in Hyderabad. It was the first time India hosted the prestigious badminton tournament.With just a few days to go for the start of the second BWF Worlds in India, Sharma is camping at New Delhi and ensuring all arrangements are fine at the venue.“As a part of the organising committee it is my duty to check everything is placed in order. After what happened during the India Open earlier this year at the same venue, we are not leaving anything to chance and making sure all systems are perfect this time around. We are absolutely confident that we will conduct it quite successfully,” Sharma told TOI on Thursday.The long-serving general secretary of Rajasthan Badminton Association (RBA), Sharma attended a couple of BAI meetings in the last few weeks in New Delhi.
BAI joint secretary KK Sharma alongwith all the members of the organising committee during the launch of the official mascot of the BWF World Badminton Championships in New Delhi
“All the core members of the organising committee were given a task to oversee the arrangements at the venue which underwent massive constructive changes since we held the India Open in January. The Indira Gandhi Arena is all decked up now with all safety arrangements and precautionary measures to ensure the smooth flow of matches,” said Sharma.Soon after the World Championships, Sharma will have another major challenge ahead as RBA is scheduled to organise two major national-level tournaments.The RBA will host the North Zone Inter-State Championship in Bhilwara from Sept 2-6 in which Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand besides hosts Rajasthan will compete for the top honours.After the North Zone, the RBA will conduct the All India Sub-Junior Ranking tournament at the SMS Stadium in Jaipur from Oct 1 to 8.“The coming few months will be quite busy for RBA as we are gearing up to host a couple of big events. National chief coach Pullela Gopichand is likely to inaugurate the Jaipur tournament on Oct 1,” added Sharma.Rajasthan badminton is certainly on the rise these days with three of their talented shuttlers – Anvi Rathore, Anshuman Choudhary and Manan Sharma – selected to represent the country at the Asia Sub-Junior C’ship scheduled to be held in China from Sept 8 to 13.
