Dipankar Bhattacharjee

Dipankar Bhattacharjee was born on 1st February 1972 in the Indian state of Assam, and was brought up in Guwahati. He has been the star badminton player from his state and from North East India, and has also participated in many international tournaments for India including Atlanta Olympics and Barcelona. He has achieved the rare feat of winning Indian National Badminton Championship three times and finished second twice. He was ranked 8th in the Barcelona Olympics.

For major part of Dipankar`s reign Pullela Gopichand, a former all England Champion, was ranked number two in Indian Badminton team.

Career of Dipankar Bhattacharjee
Dipankar went ahead with the game of badminton at a very young age. He was only two when Mr. Iswar Bhattacharjee, his father, took him out for Badminton training. He received constant support from his adviser and his father. These two people have been a source of inspiration in the early days of Dipankar. In order to attract new people into the game of badminton his father started local tournament in Guwahati Indoor Hall (Kanaklata Indoor Stadium). Apart from this Dipankar was lucky to train under various talented coaches. He also spent some times with Prakash Padukone at Badminton Academy in Bengaluru, and trained with Vimal Kumar, Prakash, Mr. Veedu etc. He was constantly guided by various national level and state level coaches.

Sportsman in Dipankar Bhattacharjee
For many tournaments Dipankar has been the star attraction. His style and aggressive nature of play attract lots of spectators. He always played fast paced and smash based games which always fascinated the onlookers. Many a times he was complicated by the great Indian badminton player Prakash Padukone.

His career was cut short by the series of injuries that he suffered over the years during run of play, and even during practise sessions. Lack of proper treatment was also a reason why the healing process took so much time.

After hit my many injuries, he finally retired from competitive badminton in the year 2004. He played his last Indian National Championship at Guwahati.

Achievements of Dipankar Bhattacharjee
* Sub-junior National runner-up - Guwahati in 1980
* Junior National Champion - Chennai in 1987
* Senior National Champion - Three times
* Senior National runner-up - Two times
* Represented India in Barcelona (1992) and Atlanta Olympics (1996), where he lost in the pre-quarters to Zhao Jianhua, of China, 15-4, 15-12
* Had been nominated for Arjuna Award couple of times

Dipankar Bhattacharjee`s Hall of Fame
Achievements of Dipankar have gone into the record books in the following areas -
* He is the first Olympian from the current state of Assam.
* He is the first Badminton player to represent India in Olympics.
* He is the only Senior National Badminton Champion from the North-East India till date (2006)
* He is the only Male Shuttler from India to have made it to Two Olympics (1992 & 1996)

Personal Life of Dipankar Bhattacharjee
In 2001, Dipankar married Ms. Dahlia Bhattacharjee of Kolkata, and the couple is blessed with a son Anirban.

At present he is pursuing Post Graduate Program in Management from SPJIMR, Mumbai. Apart from that he is associated with the formation of a Badminton coaching centre (Iswarati Center for Badminton Learning, also known as ICBL) at Guwahati.