From badminton courts to police academy, Kuhoo Garg strikes gold | Hyderabad News

Hyderabad: From being India’s No 1 badminton player to winning the Sword of Honour at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy (SVPNPA), Kuhoo Garg’s journey is as remarkable as it is inspiring. After an outstanding seven-year career on the international badminton circuit, which saw her achieve a world No 34 ranking in mixed doubles, she is now preparing for a new challenge: policing.But the former India player is determined to carry the discipline of competitive sport into her new profession. Garg is among the 151 IPS probationers who will pass out of the 78th Regular Recruit batch of SVPNPA on Oct 17. She won the honour for being the best outdoor probationer in Phase I of the training programme. The assessment covers physical training, horse riding, unarmed combat, yoga, tactics, mock drills and sports.“Once an athlete, always an athlete,” Garg told TOI on Thursday on the sidelines of the Dikshant (passing out) parade. She attributed her success at the academy to the qualities she had developed as an athlete. “The discipline, resilience, strategising and the need to always get better and push yourself — all of that stays with you,” said Garg, an Economics graduate from Shri Ram College of Commerce, who represented India from 2013 to 2020 and trained under Padma Bhushan awardee Pullela Gopichand in Hyderabad.But life took a different course when injuries, followed by a break during the Covid pandemic, prompted her to explore another path. Encouraged by her parents, Garg turned to the civil services and appeared for the UPSC examination in 2023. She secured an impressive All India Rank (AIR) of 178 and is now all set to join the Gujarat cadre.Garg insists that the transition from international badminton to the IPS is not as drastic as it might seem. Nearly a decade as a competitive athlete, she says, instilled in her the discipline, resilience and strategic thinking that have helped her excel at the National Police Academy.But the transition was not without its challenges. Having spent years prioritising sport, Garg found herself out of touch with academics when she joined the academy. “After my class 12 examinations, I was not really preparing for academics the way I had to here. I was out of touch. I would never even read the newspaper; I would just skip to the sports page,” she recalled.Returning to intensive academic study meant starting from scratch. But the habits she had developed on the badminton court proved useful once again. “The ability to keep pushing myself helped me overcome the learning curve and perform well during training,” she said.